“Did you say pois meant cat?” one of the men asked.
“No, peas! Why?” from the girl.
“Oh, I thought it must mean cat or maybe kitten because it’s called purry and it sure does purr as it is taken in out of the cold. Listen!”
Everybody involuntarily stopped eating and listened except one deaf old lady who was drinking her pea soup with such gusto that the noise she made did sound ridiculously like the purring of a cat.
Mrs. Trescott chuckled and the three naughty ones giggled.
“Oh, Mrs. White, you should hear the thrilling things Major Simpson has been telling us about a wicked shoplifter at Burnett & Burnett’s,” said one of the ladies as the soup dishes were removed and there was a lull in the business of eating.
“Shoplifter?” asked one of the young men known as Jimmy Blaine. Jimmy was a cub reporter on a morning paper and his life was lived with his ear cocked for news. “Do tell us about it Sher—Major Simpson.”
The Major, forgetting all about Jimmy’s profession and glad of the chance to entertain a new audience, one that had heretofore been a scoffing one, plunged again into the tale of how he had run down Josie O’Gorman to her lair. He waxed eloquent over the account of Mrs. Leslie and her doughnuts and coffee, even mentioning the pink parasol he had given that lady in her childhood.
“And now all we have to do is round up the whole gang through this slip of a girl. She thinks she is clever but she is no match for Sylvester Simpson.” The Major sat back and beamed on his listeners, visibly swelling with pride.
“Hope he don’t bust on me,” Jimmy’s side partner, Kit Williams, whispered to the naughty young woman who was always ready to giggle.