"I'm educated, too," she continued. "I taught school one term up in Waukesha County. I know how to spell—you ought to see how some of those girls write out their notes. And I can punctuate—semicolons just as easy as anything else. Say, do you know Mrs. Granger S. Bates?"
"I've seen her name in the papers," said Ogden, emptying his glass and feeling in his pocket for his handkerchief.
"Sorry we don't give napkins. Well, she was a school-teacher, and look at her now. I went by her house on Calumet Avenue last Sunday. She's got about everything. She is one of the patronesses of the Charity Ball. Still, I suppose she must be getting along in years—her husband has come to be the Lord High Muck-a-muck of Most Everything; I've read about him for years. Hope I haven't got to wait till I'm fifty to have a good time."
Ogden was shuffling his feet on the floor.
"Won't you have another piece of pie? No? Well, try a cream-puff, then; it'll be my treat. And do take time with it. Anything but fifty men eating away like a house afire."
Only one other customer remained. The Swede girl began to collect the cream-jugs.
"I don't care so extra much about Mrs. Bates, though. But there's Mrs. Arthur J. Ingles, three-hundred-and-something Ontario Street—do you know her? Now there's a woman that interests me. She's in the papers every day; she goes everywhere. She's 'way up, I guess; I'd be wild if she wasn't. She was at a dance last Tuesday, and she gave a reception the day before, and her sister is going to be married nest month. It's easy to follow folks since the papers began to print their names all bunched up the way they do, and Mrs. Arthur J. is one that I've followed pretty close. She must be young—I never see his name except with hers. I guess he's just a society dude. Well, dudes are all right; you've got to have 'em in a big town. You wouldn't have the whole million and a half of us be grubbers?"
"I suppose not."
"She gave a dinner last week. Covers were laid for ten—what does that mean?"
"Probably that she and her husband had eight people."