"Who is it they have to dinner, after all?" the laundress inquired. "There's our three and your lord and Miss Marlenspuyk and Mrs. Playfair—but that's sure only six. There was to be eight all out, I'm thinkin'. It's two more men they must have."
"I heard his lordship say that he expected to meet the Lord Bishop of Tuxedo," the Englishman remarked.
"And madame say zat ze judge would be here," said the French maid.
"Judge Gillespie?" asked the valet, with a certain interest.
"Yes," the Frenchwoman answered, "the Judge Gillespie. What does that make to you zat you jump like zat?"
"Oh, nothin', nothin' at all," returned Parsons, settling himself back in his chair with a snigger.
"Out with it!" cried the Irish girl. "Don't be grinnin' all night there like a stuck pig! Out with it—I see it's on the end of your tongue."
"But yes—but yes," urged the maid, "what is it you have to laugh?"
"Really," the valet began, "I don't know that I ought to say anything 'ere in this 'ouse, you know—house, I mean. But I 'ave been told that this 'ere Judge Gillespie is a very great friend of Mrs. Van Allen's. Mind, I don't say there's anything wrong in it, you know. I only tell you what I 'ave 'eard tell myself in society 'ere and there. You see this ain't the only 'ouse I visit in New York, not by a long shot it ain't. And knowin' I visit 'ere, why, naturally, you see, my other friends tell me the news, you know—the news about the goin's on 'ere, you know."
The Irish laundress and the French maid looked at each other for a moment, and then both laughed.