“Oh, you are mistaken; they are Swedish peasants. It is a mistake that we were ever put into the house with such people. My husband’s father is a Supreme Court Judge.”
“That don’t cut no ice down here; if he was the son of the Colonel himself he couldn’t get them quarters with his salary. Why, them is $225 quarters, and your husband is only a penpusher, like myself, an’ only gettin’ $100 per, with a small ice chest an’ wooden-seated chairs in the dinin’ room. The quarters you’re after is class quarters.”
“What class, for pity sake?” asks the lady.
“Class of Canal Zone, of course,” grinned the assistant, “an’ that’s sayin’ something. Ferinstance, the people you’re tryin’ to get away from are class, with a big C. He gits $250 per, an’ he ought to have that house to himself, anyway.”
The little woman, struggling to keep back her tears, left the place, after having bowed gracefully to the assistant.
“There,” said that gentleman, “that’s what I call the cream de la cream of gentility, an’ she’s stuck in a house with a bunch of rough devils that ain’t got no use for her. Say, ain’t this class quarter business the limit, though? That lady is a graduate of Vasser College, an’ the one she’s in with is a squarehead. She used to be a porteress in a Kansas City hotel. She has a voice on her like the sound of the drunk special, and when she wants anything she cusses us out for fair. I have her measured to an inch, and I sure feel sorry for that little lady that just went out. But what can we do?”
Now, there enters class, if there ever was class in this world. A woman clad in old rose satin, over which is draped black Spanish lace. Her hat and accessories are perfect. She is the wife of a carpenter and is about fifty years old. She tells in a calm, even voice that she wishes to move into class quarters, and that a woman whom she knows and likes wants the same house. They have decided to see the Quartermaster, and, as one is as much entitled to the house as the other, they’ll leave it to the Quartermaster to decide.
“He ain’t goin’ to decide any more things to-day; he’s fed up on quarters. I guess you folks had better go to Culebra. Where’s the other one?”
“She’s coming now,” said the woman, whereupon there burst upon our vision the most Juno-like woman that we had ever seen. Tall and stately was she, with a figure that ’ud put Lillian Russell in the shade, with a pair of eyes that were not made for the good of the souls of Quartermasters’ assistants, either.
“I mean to get that house,” said she, smiling, and showing a set of beautiful white teeth. “My husband was on the Isthmus seven days before hers,” said the Juno.