Whereat, Eli descended into the darkness of his private phone booth, remained a few minutes, and returned, with the information that Peter would see him that evening at eight o'clock at the "Bartonage," as he called his new residence.
"Very well," said Welty, leaving in a sulky temper.
At the hour of eight p. m., Peter was sitting at his home in all his pomp and grandeur, when the starched smile of Monroe irradially floated in upon his complacency in an hitherto unknown expansiveness.
"You old tout," said Monroe feelingly; "you surprise us all by your new stunt."
When Peter laughed, which he did now sometimes, he was the picture of a crying calf, if the simile is permissible; so when he broke his face into one of his cunning signs of mirth, Monroe could not but help feeling amused himself, and accordingly split his barren face up into waves of noncommittal wrinkles.
"Ho, ho, ha, ha," cried Peter, forgetting now to rub his hands, and instead slapped his fat hand on his fat leg; "you old batches will have to fall in line. Look! and see how glorious it all is, Monroe; and to think that I have missed it all these twenty years! Ho, ho, ha, ha, he, he; you ought to try it, Monroe, and get those crimps out of your face!" Peter laughed at this jolly till tears ran down his cheeks.
"Why, I should think you were happy, Peter, the way you are going on about it," said Monroe, gloomily.
"Yes; try it, Monroe; you can get some one; can't you?" said Peter, with an extra bang on his fat leg as an extra emphasis to his seriousness.
"I've never met my Fate—that is, no Fate that would care to take me," he remarked, with the smile gone.
"How about Jarney's girl?" asked Peter, in a confidential tone.