“Well, youse is the party I’m looking for,” said the stranger. “I got a hunch from Horton, the wall-paper-store feller, that youse was up here and that youse wanted a helper. Does youse?”
“If you know paper-hanging as a trade and profession and can go to work immediately at once, I could use you,” said Mr. Gubb. “I’ve got more jobs than I can handle alone by myself.”
“Say, me a paper-hanger?” said the stranger scornfully. “Why, sport, I’ve hung more wall-paper than youse ever saw, see? Honest, when I butted in here and saw that there Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John on the wall—”
“That what?” asked Philo Gubb.
“That there Dietz’s 7462 Bessie John, on the wall there,” explained the stranger. “Don’t youse even know the right name of that wall-paper there, that’s been a Six Best Seller for the last three years?”
“It is a forest tapestry,” said Mr. Gubb.
“Sure, Mike!” said the stranger. “And one of the finest youse ever seen. Looks like youse could walk right into it and pick hickory nuts off them oak trees, don’t it? It’s one of me old friends.”
Philo Gubb took another bite of sandwich and masticated it slowly.
“Let me teach youse something,” said the stranger, and he took a roll of the tapestry paper in his hand and unrolled a few feet. He pointed to the margin of the printed side of the paper with his oily forefinger. “Do youse see them printings?” he asked. “Says 7462 B J, don’t it?”
“It does,” mumbled Philo Gubb.