Mr. Bugbee made no comment on this disclosure. But his silence fairly screamed at her. “Wipe your feet before you come into the house,” he said. He kicked the muddied snow off his boots and opened the door.
They entered where efforts had been made to create a showing of holiday cheer. There were greens about and a sprig of synthetic mistletoe dangled above the lintel, and on the mantel was a composition statuette of good Saint Nicholas, rotund and rosy and smiling a painted smile. In the act of crossing the threshold they were aware of the presence of a visitor. Very rigidly and rather with the air of being peevish for some reason, a lantern-jawed person stood in the middle of the floor.
“Oh,” said Mrs. Bugbee advancing to make the stranger welcome. “How do you do? It’s Mr. Sisson, isn’t it? My husband told me you were coming.”
“He said eleven o’clock.” Mr. Sisson’s voice was condemnatory. “It’s nearly twenty past.”
“I’m so sorry—we are a trifle late, aren’t we? Detained down in the Cove, you know.”
“Personally I alluz make it a point to be on time, myself.” Mr. Sisson accepted the outstretched hand of his hostess and shook it stiffly but he did not unbend. He aimed a sternly interrogative glance at Mr. Bugbee: “Whut business did you want to have with me?”
“No business,” explained that gentleman. “Pleasure, I hope. We asked you here so that we might wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.”
“And to offer you a small remembrance,” supplemented Mrs. Bugbee. “And here it is—with our very best compliments.” She took from a side table a longish, roundish parcel enclosed in white tissue with ribbon bindings and a bit of imitation holly caught in the bow-knot at the top. She put it in his somewhat limp grasp.
Immediately though, his clutch on the object tightened. He fingered its contours. “Feels to me sort of like a bottle,” he opined.
“It is,” said the jovial Mr. Bugbee. “Open it and see.”