n
in any five blocks of Fifth Avenue you can name. And it seems that
anywhere within ten miles of this Piping Rock Club brings you into the
most active sector. So here we are, right in the thick of things.

At that, I expect it might have been quite some time before we was
bothered any if it hadn't been for our bein' sort of backed by the
Robert Ellinses. As their friends we're counted in right off the reel.
I've been joshed into lettin' my name go on the waitin' list at the
Country Club; I'm allowed to subscribe to this and that; some of the
neighbors have begun payin' first calls on Vee.

So I might have had sense enough to watch my step. Yet, here the other
afternoon, when I makes an early getaway from the Corrugated and hops
off the 5:17, I dashes across the back lots and comes into our place by
the rear instead of the front drive. You see, I'd been watchin' a row of
string-beans we had comin' along, and I wanted to spring the first ones
on Vee. Sure enough, I finds three or four pods 'most big enough to eat;
so I picks 'em and goes breezin' into the house, wavin' em gleeful.

"Oh, Vee!" I sings out, openin' the terrace door. "Come have a look."

And, as she don't appear on the jump, I keeps on into the livin'-room
and calls:

"Hey! What do you know about these? Beans! Perfectly good----"

Well, that's as far as I gets, for there's Vee, sittin' behind the
silver tea-urn, all dolled up; and Leon, in his black coat, holdin' a
plate of dinky little cakes; and a couple of strange ladies starin' at
me button-eyed. I'd crashed right into the midst of tea and callers.

Do I pull some easy johndrew lines and exit graceful? Not me. My feet
was glued to the rug.

"Beans!" says I, grinnin' simple and danglin' the specimens. "Perfectly
good string----"

Then I catches the eye of the stiff-necked dame with the straight nose
and the gun-metal hair. No, both eyes, it was; and a cold, suspicious,
stabby look is what they shoots my way. No wonder I chokes off the
feeble-minded remarks and turns sort of panicky to Vee, half expectin'
to find her blushin' painful or signalin' me to clear out. Nothing like
that from Vee, though.

"Not ours, Torchy?" says she, slidin' out from behind the tea-table and
rushin' over. "Not our very own?"

"Uh-huh!" says I. "Just picked 'em."

At which the other caller joins in unexpected.

"From your own garden?" says she. "How interesting! Oh, do show them to
me."

"Why, sure," says I. "