“He’s the new telephone girl,” said Jimmy, with relish; “ain’t been here but a month, and he’s doing the largest and most profitable trade in tending to other folks’s business you ever seen. Soft! Why, he must ’a’ been raised on a pillow—He always puts me in mind of a highly educated pig: it sorter surprises and tickles you to see him walkin’ round on his hind legs and talking like other people. Other day one of the boys, just to devil him, ast him to drive his team out home. I liked to ’a’ died when I seen him tryin’ to turn the corner, pullin’ ‘Gee’ and hollerin’ ‘Haw’ with every breath. Old mules got their legs in a hard knot trying to do both at once, and the boys says when Gallop got out in the country he felt so bad about it he got down and ’pologized to the mules. How ’bout that, Gallop—did you!” he concluded as the subject of the conversation arrived upon the scene.
[p59]
The new-comer, a plump, fair young man, who held one hand clasped affectionately in the other, blushed indignantly, but said nothing.
“This here is Mr. Opp,” went on Jimmy; “he wants to see Mrs. Gusty. Do you know whether he will ketch her at home or not?”
Mr. Gallop was by this time paying the tribute of many an admiring glance to every detail of Mr. Opp’s costume, and Mr. Opp, realizing this, assumed an air of cosmopolitan nonchalance, and toyed indifferently with his large watch-fob.
When Mr. Gallop’s admiration and attention had become focused upon Mr. Opp’s ring, he suddenly turned on the faucet of his conversation, and allowed such a stream of general information to pour forth that Mr. Opp quite forgot to look imposing.
“Mrs. Gusty telephoned early this morning to Mrs. Dorsey that she would come over and help her make preserves. Mrs. Dorsey got a big load of peaches from her father across the river. He’s [p60] been down with the asthma, and had to call up the doctor twice in the night. And the doctor couldn’t get the right medicine in town, and had me call up the city. They are going to send it down on the Big Sandy, but she’s stuck in the locks, and goodness knows when she’ll get here. She’s—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Mr. Opp, politely but firmly, “I’ve got to see Mrs. Gusty on very important business. Have you any idea whatsoever of when she will return back home?”
“Yes,” said Mr. Gallop, eager to oblige. “She’s about home by this time. Miss Lou Diker is making her a dress, and she telephoned she’d be by to try it on ’bout four o’clock. I’ll go up there with you, if you want me to.”
“Why don’t you drive him!” suggested Jimmy. “You can borrow a pair of mules acrost the street.”
“Mr. Opp,” said Mr. Gallop, feelingly, as they walked up Main Street, “I wouldn’t treat a’ insect like he treats me.”