A little later on he inquired with sudden concern: "Have you got anything to eat in the house?"
"I never saw such a man!" declared Blix; "you are always hungry."
"I love to eat," he protested.
"Well, we'll make some creamed oysters; how would that do?" suggested Blix.
Condy rolled his eyes. "Oh, speak to me of creamed oysters!" Then, with abrupt solemnity: "Blix, I never in my life had as many oysters as I could eat."
She made the creamed oysters in the kitchen over the gas-stove, and they ate them there—Condy sitting on the washboard of the sink, his plate in his lap.
Condy had a way of catching up in his hands whatever happened to be nearest him, and, while still continuing to talk, examining it with apparent deep interest. Just now it happened to be the morning's paper that Victorine had left on the table. For five minutes Condy had been picking it up and laying it down, frowning abstractedly at it during the pauses in the conversation. Suddenly he became aware of what it was, and instantly read aloud the first item that caught his glance:
"'Personal.—Young woman, thirty-one, good housekeeper, desires acquaintance respectable middle-aged gentleman. Object, matrimony. Address K. D. B., this office.'—Hum!" he commented, "nothing equivocal about K. D. B.; has the heroism to call herself young at thirty-one. I'll bet she IS a good housekeeper. Right to the point. If K. D. B. don't see what she wants, she asks for it."
"I wonder," mused Blix, "what kind of people they are who put personals in the papers. K. D. B., for instance; who is she, and what is she like?"
"They're not tough," Condy assured her. "I see 'em often down at 'The Times' office. They are usually a plain, matter-of-fact sort, quite conscientious, you know; generally middle-aged—or thirty-one; outgrown their youthful follies and illusions, and want to settle down."