"Whew!" she exclaimed. "Where have you been? You smell like a rancid peppermint lozenge."
"Been down in the storeroom in the basement getting out my winter suits," he said. "Messy job. I broke up a party."
"Mr. and Mrs. Moth were celebrating their woolen wedding," he explained. "They furnished the guests and I did the catering. You ought to see that heavy sweater of mine. It's not heavy any more. I'm going to write a chapter to be added to that sterling work 'Advice to an Expectant Moth-er.'"
"Oh dear!" she said. "That's the trouble with living in one of these old converted houses."
"This one has backslid," he interjected. "Insectivorous, I call it. There were enough roaches down there to last a reasonable frugal roach-collector for at least five years. Any entomologist could have enjoyed himself for a week just classifying species."
"And I fairly saturated your clothes with that spraying stuff before I packed them away," she lamented. "And as for camphor balls--well, if I used up one camphor ball I used ten pounds."
"You must have been a poor marksman. So far as I can judge you never hit a single one of 'em. And so all summer, while we flitted from place to place, gay butterflies of fashion that we are, they've been down there intent on family duties, multiplying and replenishing my flannel underwear, as the Scriptures so aptly put it. Devoted little creatures, moths! They have their faults but they have their domestic virtues, too. I wish they didn't have so much of my golf sweater. It looked like drawn-work."
"Gave it back to them. All or none--that's my motto. But I piled the rest of the duds on my bed. By prompt relief work much of it may be salvaged."
"Then for heaven's sake close the door before I choke."
He closed the door and came and sat down near her and lighted a cigarette. He wore the conventional flowing Windsor tie to prove how unconventional he was. But he did not wear the velveteen jacket; he drew the line there, having a sense of humor. Nor were his trousers baggy and unpressed. They were unbagged and impressive. Mr. Bugbee was a writer, also a painter. He was always getting ready to write something important and then at the last minute deciding to paint instead, or the other way around. What between being so clever at the two crafts he rarely prosecuted either.