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on their plates, the uncouth few were sneaking furtive peeks over their menus at an interesting tableau over at the far end of the room. Two dapper Englishmen were sitting back to back on low stools that had been brought in from the cocktail lounge. Each had a small table drawn up in front of him, and each table had an attractive woman sitting across from the man in the middle. The one in the blue dress with the green-and-pink spots, wearing a borrowed green suede hat stuck full of gray goose quills, was Clorinda; the one in the lilac suit, wearing Clorinda’s red cartwheel hat, was Arethusa.

Chapter 4
    “WELL, SHUCK ME FOR a corncob!”
    Dittany didn’t say it loudly. As the lone bairn among two parents and two grandparents all living together, she’d been almost overwhelmingly well brought up. Both Osbert and the oldest Pitz girl, who was hostessing at the inn to lay up college money, heard her, however; and both concurred in the feeling thus conveyed.
    “Maybe you’d like that table over by your mother,” the Pitz girl offered demurely.
    Osbert and Dittany said that would be fine; so she steered them to it, all three taking pains to look as if this were no big deal. Of course it would have been unthinkable for them not to stop and say hello to their respective mother and aunt, thus making it inevitable that they should get to meet the twins. Clorinda was delighted to make the introductions.
    “This is my daughter, Dittany Monk, and her husband Osbert, whom you may already know as Lex Laramie.”
    The two men bobbed up in perfect unison, looking at the Monks over their respective right and left shoulders. “Not the Lex Laramie who writes those fabulous Westerns?” cried the one who’d been sitting with Arethusa. “I went absolutely ape over Mayhem at the Mangled Mesquite. This is tremendous! Do you prefer to be called Mr. Monk or Mr. Laramie?”
    “The boys around the bunkhouse mostly just call him Pard,” said Dittany. She knew how Osbert hated to be gushed over. “And you’re …”
    “We’re always referred to as the Bleinkinsop twins, for obvious reasons,” said the one who happened to be facing her. “The different-colored ties are so you can tell us apart. I’m Glanville, the red.” He and his brother made a smart quarter-wheel left so that Glanville could shake hands with the Monks.
    “And I’m Ranville, the green.” A further half-wheel gave Ranville a chance to shake hands, too. “But this is incredible!” he cried. “The two brightest stars in Canada’s literary firmament, at one fell swoop.”
    They returned to their original position, facing the Monks again over their shoulders. “We recognized Miss Monk from her photographs, needless to say,” said Glanville.
    “And simply charged up and introduced ourselves like a couple of bobby-soxers,” said Ranville.
    “Miss Monk’s a smash hit back home, as I’m sure I don’t have to tell you,” said Glanville.
    “Everybody in London adores her madly,” said Ranville.
    “Ourselves included,” said Glanville. “Hostess, can’t we do something about these tables?”
    “If that one over there were pulled over here,” suggested Ranville.
    “Then Mr. and Mrs. Monk could sit side by side facing us,” added Glanville.
    “And we’d both be able to see them at the same time,” said Ranville.
    “Sorry to put you to the bother,” said Glanville.
    “But we have to consider the logistics,” said Ranville.
    “We love being Siamese twins,” said Glanville.
    “It’s quite fun working things out,” said Ranville.
    “And one’s never at a loss for company,” said Glanville.
    “Yes, we never walk alone,” said Ranville.
    Dittany suspected that the quip was not new, but she laughed anyway because the twins did, and so did the rest of the party. Glanville and Ranville were not at all what she’d expected. They kept up a merry patter as Osbert and the eldest Pitz girl rearranged the seating arrangements to everybody’s