“Perfect—though I sez so.”
“And the toast!” Terry was busy buttering the last slice. “You know, lovers used to write sonnets on their lady’s eyebrows—now, if they’d seen this toast!”
Dorothy shook her head at him. “That will be about all from you. Come along, all of you—everything smells so good, and I’m simply ravenous.”
It was a merry party that gathered about the old mahogany dining table. Bill began by teasing Dorothy about her lack of foresight that sent her up on a flight without enough gas. She returned his banter with interest: the others joined in and for a time everybody was wisecracking back and forth.
George was the first to bring the conversation back to current events.
“I don’t know Mr. Lewis very well,” he replied in answer to a question of Betty’s. “He was a friend of my father’s—at least father had business dealings with him. I thought I’d never get rid of the old boy tonight.”
“Did you find the book he wanted?” asked Dorothy. “Jones’ Aircraft Power Plants, wasn’t it?”
“Some book, too!” affirmed Bill. “Have you read it, Conway?”
“Didn’t know I owned it. The book—in fact, the whole library, was my father’s. About all he saved from the wreck. When I couldn’t find the book for old Lewis, what do you think he said?”
“‘Listen!’” Dorothy’s voice mimicked perfectly the old gentleman’s querulous tones. Everyone burst into laughter.