"But, Alice, darling—"
"I sha' n't listen to a word of such nonsense," persisted Alice. "So, there."
I was inclined to remonstrate, but just at that moment the front door bell rang and a telegraphic message was handed in. The message was from Cincinnati and it read in this wise:
"Shall be there to-morrow morning to look things over. Luther M. Black."
In the prospect of a visit from our patron, Mr. Black, I speedily forgot all about Colonel Bobbett Doller and his pleasing panorama of potentialities. In this we see illustrated the wisdom of Providence in so dispensing human events as to soothe the wounds of disappointment with the balm of anticipation.
XI
I MAKE A STAND FOR MY RIGHTS
Shortly after Mr. Black's arrival that worthy gentleman was escorted with all due formality to the old Schmittheimer place in Clarendon Avenue. Recognizing the fact that first impressions are lasting, we determined that Mr. Black's first impressions of our purchase should be favorable. So we conducted him to our property by a rather circuitous route. The approach to the old Schmittheimer place from the north is by all means the most agreeable; it leads by Mr. Rink's fine colonial house and Martin Howard's new place and through an embowered avenue of weeping willows, which, out of deference to his melancholy profession, Mr. Dimmons, landscape gardener of our most prosperous cemetery, has constructed in front of his beautiful residence in Thistle Patch Court; a turn is then made upon Dandelion Place, and just one block this side of Mr. Allworth's bowlder house (famous as the greatest bargain ever acquired on the North Shore) another turn to the right brings you in sight and within a few yards of our property.
Mr. Black was pleased with the neighborhood. He is not a man of enthusiasms; in all the years of my acquaintance with him I have never known him to give way to an ebullition of any kind. Yet upon this occasion there was an expression upon his face when he first set eyes upon our property which gave me to understand that he approved of our purchase. I hastened to clinch this favorable impression by apprising him briefly of the proposition Colonel Bobbett Doller had made to me the previous afternoon, and I flatter myself that, between us, Alice and I made a pretty fair presentation of the merits of our new place.