tes, with the gloom about
'em so thick you'd almost think it was a sea turn.

From the chilly looks they shot at Dyke you could tell just how they'd
forecasted the result when Aunt Elvira got him all sized up; for, with
his collar turned up and his green hat slouched, he looks as much like a
divinity student as a bulldog looks like Mary's lamb. And they can almost
see them blocks of apartment houses bein' handed over to the heathen.

As for Mr. Craig Mallory, he never so much as gives his only son a second
glance, but turns his back and stands there, twistin' the ends of his
close cropped gray mustache, and tryin' to look like he wa'n't concerned
at all. Good old sport, Craig,--one of the kind that can sit behind a
pair of sevens and raise the opener out of his socks. Lucky for his
nerves he didn't have to wait long. Pretty soon in pulls the train, and
the folks from Yonkers and Tarrytown begin to file past.

[Illustration: "Most of Auntie was obscured by the luggage she carries"]

"There she is!" whispers Dyke, givin' me the nudge. "That's Aunt Elvira,
with her bonnet on one ear."

It's one of the few black velvet lids of the 1869 model still in
captivity, ornamented with a bunch of indigo tinted violets, and kept
from bein' lost off altogether by purple strings tied under the chin.
Most of the rest of Aunty was obscured by the hand luggage she carries,
which includes four assorted parcels done up in wrappin' paper, and a
big, brass wire cage holdin' a ragged lookin' gray parrot that was tryin'
to stick his bill through the bars and sample the passersby.

She's a wrinkled faced, but well colored and hearty lookin' old girl, and
the eyes that peeks out under the rim of the velvet lid is as keen and
shrewd as a squirrel's. Whatever else she might be, it was plain Aunt
Elvira wa'n't feeble minded. Behind her comes a couple of station
porters, one cartin' an old-time black valise, and the other with his
arms wrapped around a full sized featherbed in a blue and white tick.

"Gee!" says I. "Aunty carries her own scenery with her, don't she?"

"That's Bismarck in the cage," says Dyke.

"How Bizzy has changed!" says I. "But why the feather mattress?"

"She won't sleep on anything else," says he. "Watch how pleased my
sisters look. They just love this--not! But she insists on having the
whole family here to meet her."

I must say for Mr. Mallory that he stood it well, a heavy swell like him
givin' the glad hand in pu