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the metal steps, jauntily, into the hot shade of the plane’s interior.
    “It’ll be cooler as soon as we get up,” Bick Benedict called out. “We’re pressurized.” Seats upholstered in brilliant blue and yellowand rose and green, very modern and capacious. It was startling to see that they did not stand in orderly rows like the seats in a commercial plane, but were firmly fixed near the windows as casually as you would place chairs in a living room. The safety belts were in bright colors to match and the metal clasps bore the Reata brand. In the tail was a cozy section with banquettes upholstered in crimson leather and a circular table in the center for cards or for dining.
    And there at the door as they entered was a slim dark-haired young steward in a smart French-blue uniform and beside him stood the blonde young stewardess in her slick skirted version of the same, and in the inner distance an assistant steward busy with wraps and little jewel cases and magazines.
    A vibration, a humming, a buzzing a roaring; they lifted they soared, the strained expression left the faces of the King, the Queen, the Motion Picture Star, the Congressman, the South American—all the passengers who did not feel secure in life, whether up in the air or down on the ground.
    “Bourbon!” boomed a big male voice. It was Judge Whiteside in reply to a question from the steward standing before him with tray and glasses.
    The royal pair jumped perceptibly. The steward turned to them. “Bourbon? Scotch? Old-fashioned? Martini?”
    “Oh, it’s a—it’s something to drink!” It was the first time the Queen had spoken since leaving the house.
    “Well, sure,” said Bale Clinch, “bourbon whiskey, what else would it be?”
    “I have some relatives whose family name this is, in a way of speaking. May I know how the name of Bourbon came to be used for a whiskey?” the girl asked shyly.
    “Well, ma’am,” the Congressman began to explain, quite unconsciously addressing her correctly as he used the Texas colloquialism, “it’s the best old whiskey there is, and it’s made of mash that’s better than fifty percent corn. It’s named because they say it was first made in Bourbon County, Kentucky. My opinion, it was originally made in Texas.”
    Vashti Snyth’s shrill voice came through with the piercing quality of a calliope whistle. “He’ll tell you everything was originally made in Texas. Texas brag. Worse than the Russians.”
    Leslie made herself heard above the roar of the motors. “Here in the United States the word has still another meaning. Anyone who is extremely conservative—well, reactionary you know. We say he is a Bourbon. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “Not at all,” said the girl with an effort at gaiety. “But to have a good whiskey named after one is more flattering.”
    Fascinated, the two watched the male Texans tossing down straight bourbon. Bent on pleasing though they were, they refused it themselves knowing that this was no refreshment for a royal stomach, sedentary by habit and weak by inheritance. On the wagon, said the heavyweight ex-champion. Not before six P.M ., said the cowboy movie star.
    For Leslie Benedict there was about this vast and improbable vehicle and its motley company a dreamlike quality. Her sister Lady Karfrey was being studiedly rude to royalty, she had no time for the deposed or unsuccessful. They’re behaving like refugees, Leslie thought. Worried and uncertain and insecure and over-anxious to please. Kings and queens deposed once were called exiles—splendid romantic exiles. Now they’re only refugees, I suppose.
    They alone stared out of the plane windows, in their eyes fright and unbelief mingled. Seen from the sky the arid landscape lay, a lovely thing. The plains were gold and purple, the clouds cast great blue-black shadows, there were toy boxes in a dark green patch that marked the oasis of an occasional ranch house, and near by the jade-green circlets that meant water