“No, you don’t!” he declared. “You’re going to stay and have lunch with me—here. If you say no, I shall believe it is because you are afraid of a boarding-house meal.”
His guest protested, but the protests were overruled, and he and his host went down to the dining room. The captain whispered as they entered, “Land sakes, Jim, this takes me back home. It’s pretty nigh a twin to the dinin’ room at the Centre House in South Denboro.”
All boarding-house dining rooms bear a family likeness, so the comment was not far wrong. A long table, rows of chairs on each side, ancient and honorable pictures on the walls, the landlady presiding majestically over the teapot, the boarders’ napkins in rings—all the familiar landmarks were present.
Most of the male “regulars” were in business about the city and therefore lunched elsewhere, but the females were in evidence. Pearson introduced his guest. The captain met Mrs. Hepton, the landlady, plump, gray-haired, and graciously hospitable. She did not look at all like a business woman, but appearances are not always to be trusted; Mrs. Hepton had learned not to trust them—also delinquent boarders, too far. He met Miss Sherborne, whose coiffure did not match in spots, but whose voice, so he learned afterward, had been “cultivated abroad.” Miss Sherborne gave music lessons. Mrs. Van Winkle Ruggles also claimed his attention and held it, principally because of the faded richness of her apparel. Mrs. Ruggles was a widow, suffering from financial reverses; the contrast between her present mode of living and the grandeur of the past formed her principal topic of conversation.
There were half a dozen others, including an artist whose aversion to barbers was proclaimed by the luxuriant length of his locks, a quiet old gentleman who kept the second-hand book store two doors below; his wife, a neat, trim little body; and Mr. and Mrs. C. Dickens, no less.
Mr. Dickens was bald, an affliction which he tried to conceal by brushing the hair at the sides of his head across the desert at the top. He shaved his cheeks and wore a beard and mustache. Mrs. Dickens addressed him as “C.,” and handed him the sauce bottle, the bread, or whatever she imagined he desired, as if she were offering sacrifice to an idol.
She sat next to Captain Elisha and imparted information concerning her lord and master in whispers, during the intervals between offerings.
“My husband will be pleased to meet you, Captain Warren,” she murmured. “Any friend of Mr. Pearson is certain to be an acquisition. Mr. Pearson and my husband are congenial spirits; they are members of the same profession.”
“I want to know, ma’am.”