"Yes, do!" echoed Mrs. Gallup.
"I"ve forgotten about it," answered the brilliant conversationalist sullenly.
"Well, tell us about Beethoven, then," pursued Mr. Pottle relentlessly.
"I never was there," growled Mr. Deeley. "Say, when does the next trolley leave for Xenia?"
"In seven minutes," answered Mrs. Gallup coldly. "You"ve just got time to catch it."
The bungalow"s front door snapped at the heels of the departing sage from Xenia.
Mr. Pottle hitched his chair close to the sofa where Mrs. Gallup sat.
"Oh, Mr. Pottle," she said softly, "do talk some more! I just love to hear you. You surprised me. I didn"t realize you were such a well-read man."
Mr. Pottle looked into her wide blue eyes.
"I"m not," he said. "I was bluffing."
"Bluffing?"
"Yes," he said; "and so was your friend from Xenia. He"s no more in the literary line than I am. His job is selling a book called "Hog Culture.""
"But he talks so well----" began Mrs. Gallup.
"Only about things that begin with "A,"" said Mr. Pottle. "He memorized everything in the encyclopedia under "A." I simply went him one better.
I memorized all of "A," and all of "B" too."
"Oh, the deceitful wretch!"
"I"m sorry, Blossom. Can you forgive me?" he pleaded. "I did it because----"
She interrupted him gently.
"I know," she said, smiling. "You did it for me. I wasn"t calling you a wretch, Ambrose."
He found himself on the sofa beside her, his arm about her.
"What I really want," she confessed with a happy sigh, "is a good strong man to take care of me."
"We"ll go through the rest of the encyclopedia together, dearest," said Mr. Pottle.
IV: _Mr. Pottle and the One Man Dog_
"Ambrose! Ambrose dear!" The new Mrs. Pottle put down the book she was reading--Volume Dec to Erd of the encyclopedia.
"Yes, Blossom dear." Mr. Pottle"s tone was fraught with the tender solicitude of the recently wed. He looked up from his book--Volume Ode to Pay of the encyclopedia.
"Ambrose, we must get a dog!"
"A dog, darling?"
His tone was still tender but a thought lacking in warmth. His smile, he hoped, conveyed the impression that while he utterly approved of Blossom, herself, personally, her current idea struck no responsive chord in his bosom.
"Yes, a dog."
She sighed as she gazed at a large framed steel-engraving of Landseer"s St. Bernards that occupied a s.p.a.ce on the wall until recently tenanted by a crayon enlargement of her first husband in his lodge regalia.
"Such n.o.ble creatures," she sighed. "So intelligent. And so loyal."
"In the books they are," murmured Mr. Pottle.
"Oh, Ambrose," she protested with a pout. "How can you say such a thing?
Just look at their big eyes, so full of soul. What magnificent animals!
So full of understanding and fidelity and--and----"
"Fleas?" suggested Mr. Pottle.
Her glance was glacial.
"Ambrose, you are positively cruel," she said, tiny, injured tears gathering in her wide blue eyes. He was instantly penitent.
"Forgive me, dear," he begged. "I forgot. In the books they don"t have "em, do they? You see, precious, I don"t take as much stock in books as I used to. I"ve been fooled so often."
"They"re lovely books," said Mrs. Pottle, somewhat mollified. "You said yourself that you adore dog stories."
"Sure I do, honey," said Mr. Pottle, "but a man can like stories about elephants without wanting to own one, can"t he?"
"A dog is not an elephant, Ambrose."
He could not deny it.
"Don"t you remember," she pursued, rapturously, "that lovely book, "Hero, the Collie Beautiful," where a kiddie finds a puppy in an ash barrel, and takes care of it, and later the collie grows up and rescues the kiddie from a fire; or was that the book where the collie flew at the throat of the man who came to murder the kiddie"s father, and the father broke down and put his arms around the collie"s neck because he had kicked the collie once and the collie used to follow him around with big, hurt eyes and yet when he was in danger Hero saved him because collies are so sensitive and so loyal?"
"Uh huh," a.s.sented Mr. Pottle.
"And that story we read, "Almost Human"," she rippled on fluidly, "about the kiddie who was lost in a snow-storm in the mountains and the brave St. Bernard that came along with bottles of spirits around its neck--St.
Bernards always carry them--and----"
"Do the bottles come with the dogs?" asked Mr. Pottle, hopefully.
She elevated disapproving eyebrows.
"Ambrose," she said, sternly, "don"t always be making jests about alcohol. It"s so common. You know when I married you, you promised never even to think of it again."