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?"
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. "Guess we're doin' our bit, ain't we?"
She's a wide, dumpy-built old girl, and dressed sort of freaky. Also her line of talk is a kind of purry, throaty gush that's almost too soothin' to be true. But anybody who makes only half a bluff at being interested in our garden wins us. And not until she's inspected our first string-beans through her gold lorgnette, and remarked twice more how wonderful it was for us to raise anything like that, does it occur to Vee to introduce me proper to both ladies.
The tall, stiff-necked dame turns out to be Mrs. Pemberton Foote. Honest! Could you blame her for bein' jarred when I come bouncin' in with garden truck?
Think of it! Why, she's one of the super-tax brigade and moves among the smartest of the smart-setters. And Pemmy, he's on the polo team, you know.
Oh, reg'lar people, the Pembroke Footes are. And the very fact that Mrs. Foote is here callin' on Vee ought to have me thrilled to the bone.
Yet all I got sense enough to do is wave half-grown string-beans at her, and then sit by gawpy, balancin' a cup of tea on my knee, and watch her apply the refrigeratin' process to the dumpy old girl whose name I didn't quite catch. Say, but she does it thorough and artistic. Only two or three times did the dumpy one try to kick in on the chat, and when she does, Mrs. Pemmy rolls them glittery eyes towards her slow, givin' her the up-and-down like she was some kind of fat worm that had strayed in from the cucumber bed.