“Hephzy,” said I, “you will go shopping again to-morrow morning and I'll go with you.”
Go we did, and we bought the coat and the hat and the suit and various other things. With each purchase Hephzy's groans and protests at my reckless extravagance grew louder. At last I had an inspiration.
“Hephzy,” said I, “when we meet Little Frank over there in France, or wherever he may be, you will want him to be favorably impressed with your appearance, won't you? These things cost money of course, but we must think of Little Frank. He has never seen his American relatives and so much depends on a first impression.”
Hephzy regarded me with suspicion. “Humph!” she sniffed, “that's the first time I ever knew you to give in that there WAS a Little Frank. All right, I sha'n't say any more, but I hope the foreign poorhouses are more comfortable than ours, that's all. If you make me keep on this way, I'll fetch up in one before the first month's over.”
We left for New York on the five o'clock train. Packing those “Early English Poets” was a confounded nuisance. They had to be stuffed here, there and everywhere amid my wearing apparel and Hephzibah prophesied evil to come.
“Books are the worse things goin' to make creases,” she declared. “They're all sharp edges.”
I had to carry two of the volumes in my pockets, even then, at the very start. They might prove delightful traveling companions, as the bookman had said, but they were most uncomfortable things to sit on.
We reached the Grand Central station on time and went to a nearby hotel. I should have sent the heavier baggage directly to the steamer, but I was not sure—absolutely sure—which steamer it was to be. The “Princess Eulalie” almost certainly, but I did not dare take the risk.
Hephzy called to me from the room adjoining mine at twelve that night.
“Just think, Hosy!” she cried, “this is the last night either of us will spend on dry land.”