d she gives up for good, it's me jumpin'
snappy to tow her out and tuck her in the limousine. Havin' made my
escape, I stays outside until after Mrs. Pemmy has gone too, which
don't happen for near half an hour later. But when I hears the front
door shut on her, I sidles in at the back.

"Zowie!" says I. "You must have made more of a hit with our swell
neighbor than I did, Vee."

Vee smiles quizzin' and shrugs her shoulders.

"I'm not so sure," says she. "I almost feel as though we had been
visited by the Probation Officer, or someone like that."

"How do you mean?" says I.

"Of course," she goes on, "Mrs. Foote did not actually say that we were
on trial socially, but she hinted as much. And she made it quite plain
that unless we got started in the right set our case would be utterly
hopeless."

"Just think of that!" says I. "Real sweet of her, eh? Sort of inspector
general, is she? You should have asked her to show her badge, though."

"Oh, there's no doubt that she speaks with authority," says Vee. "She
wasn't snippy about it, either. And chiefly she was trying to warn me
against Mrs. Ben Tupper."

"The old girl with the pelican chin and the rovin' eyes?" I asks.
"What's the matter with her besides her looks?"

Well, accordin' to Mrs. Pemmy Foote, there was a lot. She had a past,
for one thing. She was a pushing, presumptuous person, for another. And,
besides, this Benjamin Tupper party--the male of the species--was wholly
impossible.

"You know who he is," adds Vee. "The tablet man."

"What?" says I. "'Tupper's Tablets for Indigestion--on Everybody's
Tongue.' Him?"

Vee nods. "And they live in that barny stucco house just as you turn off
Sagamore Boulevard--the one with the hideous red-tiled roof and the
concrete lions in front."

"Goodness Agnes!" says I. "Folks have been indicted for less than that.
I've seen Tupper, too; someone pointed him out goin' in on the express
only the other mornin'. Looks like a returned Nihilist who'd been
nominated in one of the back wards of Petrograd to run for the Duma on a
free-vodka platform. He's got wiry whiskers that he must trim with a
pair of tin-shears, tufts in his ears, and the general build of a
performin' chimpanzee. Oh, he's a rare one, Tupper."

"Then," says Vee, sort of draggy, "I--I suppose Mrs. Foote is right.
It's too bad, for that Mrs. Tupper did seem such a friendly old soul.
And I shall feel so snobbish if I don't return her call."

"Huh!" say