Suddenly Harvey gave a squeal of joy and instituted a series of hops and bounds that threatened to create havoc in the narrow, bottle-encircled space behind the prescription wall. 230 He danced up and down, waving the telegram on high, the tails of his half-finished wedding garment doing a mad obbligato to the tune of his nimble legs.
“Harvey!” shrieked Mrs. Davis, aghast.
“Yi-i-i!” rang out his ear-splitting yell. Pedestrians half a block away heard it and felt sorry for Mrs. Wiggs, the unhappy wife of the town sot, who, it went without saying, must be on another “toot.”
“Harvey!” cried the poor lady once more.
“She’s going to faint!” shouted the prescription clerk in consternation.
“Let her! Let her!” whooped Harvey. “It’s all right, Joe! Let her faint if she wants to.”
“I’m not going to faint!” exclaimed Mrs. Davis, struggling to her feet and pushing Joe away. “Keep quiet, Harvey! Do you want customers to think you’re crazy? Give me that telegram. I’ll attend to that. I’ll answer it mighty quick, let me tell you. Give it to me.”
Harvey sobered almost instantly. His jaw fell. The look in her face took all the joy out of his.
“Isn’t—isn’t it great, Minerva?” he murmured, 231 as he allowed her to snatch the message from his unresisting fingers.
She glared at him. “Great? Why, you don’t think for a moment that I’ll have the brat in my house, do you? Great? I don’t see what you can be thinking of, Harvey. You must be clean out of your head. I should say it ain’t great. It’s perfectly outrageous. Where’s the telegraph office, Joe? I’ll show the dreadful little wretch that she can’t shunt her child off on me for support. Not much. Where is it, Joe? Didn’t you hear what I asked?”