ugh, Sadie!" says I. "It's hard to tell, you know.
What's the odds if they do have to go back to their little Eighth avenue
flat next week? They're satisfied. Anyway, Mabel is. She's New York born
and bred, she is, and now that she's had her annual blow she don't care
what happens. Next year, if Deary hangs on, they'll have another."

"But it's so foolish of them!" insists Sadie.

"What else do you expect from a pair like that?" says I. "It's what they
want most, ain't it? And there's plenty like 'em. No, they ain't such
bad folks, either. Their hearts are all there. Just a case of vacancy in
the upper stories: nobody home, you know."

CHAPTER XI

UNDER THE WIRE WITH EDWIN

If you must know, I was doin' a social duck. Not that I ain't more or
less parlor broke by this time, or am apt to shy at a dinner coat, like
a selfmade Tammany statesman when addressin' his fellow Peruvians.
Nothing like that! Pick out the right comp'ny, and I can get through
quite some swell feed without usin' the wrong fork more'n once or twice.
I don't mind little fam'ly gatherin's at Pinckney's or the Purdy-Pells'
now. I can even look a butler in the eye without feelin' shivery along
the spine. But these forty-cover affairs at the Twombley-Cranes', with a
dinner dance crush afterwards and a buffet supper at one-thirty
A.M.--that's where I get off.

Sadie likes to take 'em in once in awhile, though, and as long as she'll
spend what there's left of the night with friends in town, and don't
keep me hangin' round until the brewery trucks and milk wagons begin to
get busy, I ain't got any kick comin'.

It was one of these fussy functions I was dodgin'. I'd had my dinner at
home, peaceable and quiet, while Sadie was dressin', and at that there
was plenty of time left for me to tow her into town and land her at the
Twombley-Cranes', where they had the sidewalk canopy out and an extra
carriage caller on duty. I'd quit at the mat, though, and was slopin'
down the front steps, when I'm held up by this sharp-spoken old girl
with the fam'ly umbrella and the string bonnet.

"Young man," says she, plantin' herself square in front of me, "is this
Mr. Twombley-Crane's house?"

"This is where it begins," says I, lookin' her over some amused; for
that lid of hers sure was the quaintest thing on Fifth-ave.

"Humph!" says she. "Looks more like the way into a circus! What's this
thing for?" and she waves the umbrella scornful at the canopy.

"Wh