"That"s why you haven"t wasted any time learning Five Hundred and things, isn"t it? Because you"ve been so busy reading and so on?"
"Yes, kind of." Mr. Wrenn looked modest.
"Haven"t you always been lots of--oh, haven"t you always "magined lots?"
She really seemed to care.
Mr. Wrenn felt excitedly sure of that, and imparted: "Yes, I guess I have.... And I"ve always wanted to travel a lot."
"So have I! Isn"t it wonderful to go around and see new places!"
"Yes, _isn"t_ it!" he breathed. "It was great to be in England--though the people there are kind of chilly some ways.
Even when I"m on a wharf here in New York I feel just like I was off in China or somewheres. I"d like to see China. And India.... Gee! when I hear the waves down at Coney Island or some place--you know how the waves sound when they come in.
Well, sometimes I almost feel like they was talking to a guy--you know--telling about ships. And, oh say, you know the whitecaps--aren"t they just like the waves was motioning at you--they want you to come and beat it with you--over to China and places."
"Why, Mr. Wrenn, you"re a regular poet!"
He looked doubtful.
"Honest; I"m not teasing you; you are a poet. And I think it"s fine that Mr. Teddem was saying that n.o.body could be a poet or like that unless they drank an awful lot and--uh--oh, not be honest and be on a job. But you aren"t like that. _Are_ you?"
He looked self-conscious and mumbled, earnestly, "Well, I try not to be."
"But I am going to make you go to church. You"ll be a socialist or something like that if you get to be too much of a poet and don"t--"
"Miss Nelly, please _may_ I go to church with you?"
"Why--"
"Next Sunday?"
"Why, yes, I should be pleased. Are you a Presbyterian, though?"
"Why--uh--I guess I"m kind of a Congregationalist; but still, they"re all so much alike."
"Yes, they really are. And besides, what does it matter if we all believe the same and try to do right; and sometimes that"s hard, when you"re poor, and it seems like--like--"
"Seems like what?" Mr. Wrenn insisted.
"Oh--nothing.... My, you"ll have to get up awful early Sunday morning if you"d like to go with me. My church starts at ten-thirty."
"Oh, I"d get up at five to go with you."
"Stupid! Now you"re just trying to jolly me; you _are_; because you men aren"t as fond of church as all that, I know you aren"t. You"re real lazy Sunday mornings, and just want to sit around and read the papers and leave the poor women--But please tell me some more about your reading and all that."
"Well, I"ll be all ready to go at nine-thirty.... I don"t know; why, I haven"t done much reading. But I would like to travel and--Say, wouldn"t it be great to--I suppose I"m sort of a kid about it; of course, a guy has to tend right to business, but it would be great--Say a man was in Europe with--with--a friend, and they both knew a lot of history--say, they both knew a lot about Guy Fawkes (he was the guy that tried to blow up the English Parliament), and then when they were there in London they could almost think they saw him, and they could go round together and look at Sh.e.l.ley"s window--he was a poet at Oxford--Oh, it would be great with a--with a friend."
"Yes, wouldn"t it?... I wanted to work in the book department one time. It"s so nice your being--"
"Ready for Five Hundred?" bellowed Tom Poppins in the hall below. "Ready partner--you, Wrenn?"
Tom was to initiate Mr. Wrenn into the game, playing with him against Mrs. Arty and Miss Mary Proudfoot.
Mrs. Arty sounded the occasion"s pitch of high merriment by delivering from the doorway the sacred old saying, "Well, the ladies against the men, eh?"
A general grunt that might be spelled "Hmmmmhm" a.s.sented.
"I"m a good suffragette," she added. "Watch us squat the men, Mary."
"Like to smash windows? Let"s see--it"s red fours, black fives up?" remarked Tom, as he prepared the pack of cards for playing.
"Yes, I would! It makes me so tired," a.s.severated Mrs. Arty, "to think of the old goats that men put up for candidates when they _know_ they"re solemn old fools! I"d just like to get out and vote my head off."
"Well, I think the woman"s place is in the home," sniffed Miss Proudfoot, decisively, tucking away a doily she was finishing for the Women"s Exchange and jabbing at her bangs.
They settled themselves about the glowing, glancing, glittering, golden-oak center-table. Miss Proudfoot shuffled sternly. Mr.
Wrenn sat still and frightened, like a shipwrecked professor on a raft with two gamblers and a press-agent, though Nelly was smiling encouragingly at him from the couch where she had started her embroidery--a large Christmas lamp mat for the wife of the Presbyterian pastor at Upton"s Grove.
"Don"t you wish your little friend Horatio Hood Teddem was here to play with you?" remarked Tom.
"I _do_ not," declared Mrs. Arty. "Still, there was one thing about Horatio. I never had to look up his account to find out how much he owed me. He stopped calling me, Little b.u.t.tercup, when he owed me ten dollars, and he even stopped slamming the front door when he got up to twenty. O Mr. Wrenn, did I ever tell you about the time I asked him if he wanted to have Annie sweep--"
"Gerty!" protested Miss Proudfoot, while Nelly, on the couch, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed mechanically, "That story!" but Mrs. Arty chuckled fatly, and continued:
"I asked him if he wanted me to have Annie sweep his nightshirt when she swept his room. He changed it next day."
"Your bid, Mr. Poppins, "said Miss Proudfoot, severely.
"First, I want to tell Wrenn how to play. You see, Wrenn, here"s the schedule. We play Avondale Schedule, you know."
"Oh yes," said Mr. Wrenn, timorously.... He had once heard of Carbondale--in New Jersey or Pennsylvania or somewhere--but that didn"t seem to help much.
"Well, you see, you either make or go back," continued Tom.
"Plus and minus, you know. Joker is high, then right bower, left, and ace. Then--uh--let"s see; high bid takes the cat--widdie, you know--and discards. Ten tricks. Follow suit like whist, of course. I guess that"s all--that ought to give you the hang of it, anyway. I bid six on no trump."
As Tom Poppins finished these instructions, given in the card-player"s rapid don"t-ask-me-any-more-fool-questions manner, Mr. Wrenn felt that he was choking. He craned up his neck, trying to ease his stiff collar. So, then, he was a failure, a social outcast already.
So, then, he couldn"t learn Five Hundred! And he had been very proud of knowing one card from another perfectly, having played a number of games of two-handed poker with Tim on the cattle-boat.
But what the d.i.c.kens did "left--cat--follow suit" mean?
And to fail with Nelly watching him! He pulled at his collar again.
Thus he reflected while Mrs. Arty and Tom were carrying on the following brilliant but cryptic society-dialogue:
_Mrs. Arty:_ Well, I don"t know.
_Tom:_ Not failure, but low bid is crime, little one.
_Mrs. Arty:_ Mary, shall I make--