Joe threw up his arms and let out a laugh that made the two draftsmen in the next room raise their heads.
“None of ’em, you woodenhead. Listen, Sam, and I’ll put a fresh curl in your hair. When I reached the sidewalk this morning, the whole place—hall, steps, and curb—were cluttered up with furniture! Everything from a flat-iron to a folding-bed was all over the lot. That new family—the one Moses was telling us about last night—were moving in. Mounted on a chair—just a plain kitchen chair, mind you—stood a girl—oh, a daisy girl!—holding on to a dressing-table, its legs tied up in a stove. And, Sam——”
“Her legs tangled up in—what are you talking about, Joe?”
“Not hers, you idiot! The Chippendale’s.”
“Well, then, what’s the girl got to do with it?”
“Don’t I tell you she owned the table? She was all broken up. Called her ‘darling.’ Was just bursting into tears when I made a dive, grabbed the eighteenth-century relic by one corner, lifted it over everybody’s head, carried it inside, and laid it at the feet of a rather demoralized woman—no doubt her mother—her head tied up in a green veil. Hence, ‘Thanks,’ grateful looks, and ‘Oh, so kind of you, sir’—that sort of thing. Returned to the girl, apologized, more ‘Oh, thank yous,’ and retired in good order. A perfect stunner, I tell you, Sam! I knew we’d strike it rich when you picked out that old rookery. We’ll begin to live now. She’s right below. Go down any time she sends for us. I’ve been thinking it over, and the first thing to do is to have a tea. Got to be hospitable, you know. We’ve just moved in, and they’ve just moved in. We’ve been there the longest, and, therefore, we make the advances. That would be the decent thing to do if there wasn’t any girl. Don’t you think so?”
Sam’s mind had begun to wander. He had listened to a dozen just such outbursts in the past six months.
Joe rattled on:
“Of course, we must invite the mother and father. They won’t come. He won’t, anyway. Mother might, so as to find out who we were and how we lived, and after that it will be easy-going with the daughter. I’ll send for Higgins and his sister, and you get Matty Sands and her mother, and—”
Sam began moving toward the door.