And if you'll bring the girls around some time when I'm pulling off an exhibition flight, I'll let 'em shake hands with me." "Well, of all the conceit!" By that one futile phrase Mary V owned herself defeated in the first charge.

"Of all--" "Conceit?
Nothing like that! When you thought it was a good cause to ride all these miles on the hottest day of the year, just to get my picture--" Johnny smirked at her in a perfectly maddening way.

He knew it was maddening to Mary V, for he had meant it to be so.
"I did not!" Mary V's face could not be any redder than the heat had made it, but even so one could see the rise in her mental temperature.
"You said you did." "Well--I merely want your picture to put with my collection of donkeys! You--" "You said points of interest," Johnny reminded her.

He had lost all his moroseness in the interest of the conversation.

He had forgotten what a tonic his word-battles with Mary V could furnish.