“Come on, Jose. Pants?”

“It’s too complicated to explain. And to make it look good, I have to get up before dawn and stand out in the mud. I know that marsh. I know it well. The mosquitoes are twice as big as the ducks.”

“I don’t get it! What’s the good of being the brother-in-law of the head of a company if you can’t make any plans? You already gave him forty hours this week.”

“I know, sweetie, it’s rough. But this is top priority and I can’t do a thing about it.”

“You don’t have to give me a big story. You wouldn’t have another girl on the string, would you?”

He smiled. “Funny face.”

“I had a chance to go somewhere else Sunday, that’s all,” she said discontentedly. “I said I was going to be busy.”

He took a small package out of his side pocket and passed it to her.

“A present?” she cried, with one of her fast personality switches.

She was now a little girl on Christmas morning. She broke the string and unwrapped a small perfume box. Despard was attending to the traffic, but he could tell she was disappointed. Then she opened the box and read the label, and her jaws stopped moving.

“Jose, this stuff sells for fifty bucks an ounce, and this is an ounce!”

He twirled his imaginary mustache again. “I expect to get my money’s worth.”

“Don’t worry about that. I never heard you complain yet.” She put a hand on his nearest leg. “I don’t like that about Sunday, but I’ll just have to stand it. I’ll ask my girl friend to come over and give me a permanent. But I’ll have to pour this perfume in another bottle or change the label, one. If she sees it, she’s going to want to know what’s going on. The way she pokes and pries and picks, I just know I’ll tell her the whole thing.”