“Barby,” she asked hesitatingly, “what do people mean exactly, when they say they have other fish to fry?”
“Oh, just other business to attend to or something else they’d rather do.”
“But when they shrug their shoulders at the same time,” persisted Georgina.
“A shrug can stand for almost anything,” answered Barby. “Sometimes it says meaner things than words can convey.”
Then came the inevitable question which made Georgina wish that she had not spoken.
“But why do you ask, dear? Tell me how the expression was used, and I can explain better.”
Now Georgina could not understand why she had brought up the subject. It had been uppermost in her mind all evening, but every time it reached the tip of her tongue she drove it back. That is, until this last time. Then it seemed to say itself. Having gone this far she could not lightly change the subject as an older person might have done. Barby was waiting for an answer. It came in a moment, halting but truthful.
“That day I was at the Bazaar, you know, and everybody was saying how nice I looked, dressed up like a little girl of long ago, I heard Mrs. Whitman say to Miss Minnis that one would think that Justin Huntingdon would want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to see me; and Miss Minnis shrugged her shoulders, this way, and said:
“‘Oh, he has other fish to fry.’”
Georgina, with her usual aptitude for mimicry, made the shrug so eloquent that Barby understood exactly what Miss Minnis intended to convey, and what it had meant to the wondering child.