This is a tale of last August. Poinsette was to be left alone for four weeks. Mrs. Poinsette had settled on Cape May as a good thing for the hot spell. She would hie her thither and leave Poinsette to do his worst without her.
Poinsette did not care. He bravely told Mrs. P. she needed an outing. The ozone and the salty, ocean breeze would do her good. So he encouraged Cape May, and bid Mrs. P. go there by all means.
It was decided by the Poinsettes discussing Cape May to have Poinsette room up town while Mrs. P. was thus Cape Maying. The Poinsette house in the suburbs might better be locked up during Mrs. P.'s absence from the city. It would be more economical; indeed, it was not esteemed safe to leave the Poinsette lares and penates to the unwatched ministrations of the Congo who performed in the Poinsette kitchen. It would be wiser to dismiss the servant, bolt and bar the house, obtain Poinsette apartments, and let him browse for food among the bounteous restaurants of the city.
Poinsette found a room to suit in a house on West 87th Street. It was one of a long row of houses. Poinsette reported his victory in room-hunting to Mrs. P. Poinsette was now all right, and ready for what might come. Mrs. P. might bend her course to Cape May without further hesitation.
Mrs. P. was glad to learn of Poinsette's apartment success. She went out and looked at his find to make sure that Poinsette would be comfortable. Incidentally, Mrs. P. kept her eye about her, to note whether the boarding-house books carried any pretty girls. Mrs. P. did not care to have Poinsette too comfortable.
There were no pretty girls. Mrs. P. approved the selection. The very next day she kissed Poinsette good-bye and rumbled and ferried to the station, from which arena of smoke and noise a train leaped forth like a greyhound and bore her away to Cape May.
Poinsette did not accompany his spouse to the station. Ten years before he would have done this, but experience had taught him that Mrs. P. could care for herself. Therefore he remained behind to fasten up the house. Soberly he went about locking doors, and fastening windows, and thinking rather sadly,—as all husbands so deserted do,—of the long, lonely months before him. At last all was secure, and Poinsette turned the key in the big front door and came away.
Poinsette did not feel like work that afternoon, or the trifling fragment of it that was left after Mrs. P. had wended and he had locked up the house. He bought a few good books and several of the more solid periodicals. They would serve during the weary nights while Mrs. P. was away at the Cape. These Poinsette sent to his rooms, and, as it was growing six o'clock now, he turned into Sherry's for his dinner.
Just where Poinsette went that evening following Sherry's, and what he saw and did, and who assisted at such enterprises as he embarked in, would be nothing to the present point and may be skipped. They are the private affairs of Poinsette, and not properly the subjects of a morbid curiosity. However, lest Mrs. P. see this and argue aught herefrom to feed distrust, it should be said that Poinsette saw nobody, did nothing, went no place unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.
It was four o'clock in the morning when Poinsette, the sole passenger aboard a foaming night-liner, toiled through the Park and bore away for his new abode. Poinsette stopped the faithful night-liner two blocks from the door and went forward on foot. Poinsette did not care to clatter ostentatiously to his rooms at four in the morning the first day he inhabited them.