“When I land, I’ll land big—I’ll land with both feet,” he responded more cheerfully.
“Of course, you will—I never doubt it.” Mrs. Toomey endeavored to make her tone convincing. “Let’s have tea in the heirloom before we part with it,” she suggested brightly. “It’s never been used that I can remember.”
“It’s ugly enough to be valuable,” Toomey observed, eyeing the teapot as she took it from the top of the bookcase.
“Solid, nearly, and came over in the Mayflower,” Mrs. Toomey replied proudly. “We’ll have tea and toast and codfish.”
“The information is superfluous.” Toomey sniffed the air and made a wry face. “I’d as soon eat billposter’s paste as codfish.”
“To-night we’ll have steak—thick, like that—” Mrs. Toomey measured with her thumb and finger as she went into the kitchen.
Toomey eyed the codfish darkly when his wife placed it on the table.
“Sit down, Jap,” she urged. “The tea will be steeped in just a second. Don’t wait—” A scream completed the sentence.
Toomey overturned his chair as he rushed to the kitchen. He arrived in time to see the lid of the priceless heirloom disappearing in a puddle of pewter. It seemed to the Toomeys that the Fates had singled them out as special objects for their malevolence.
The wind continued to blow as though it meant never to stop. It was a wind of which the people of the East who speak awesomely of their own “gales” and “tempest” wot not.