“Now, then, only three-quarters of an hour until train time. Fly around. A fair field and no favors, you know.”
And away they flew. Mr. Man bulged into this room, and rushed through that, and into one closet after another, with inconceivable chuckling under his breath all the time to think how cheap Mrs. Man would feel when he started off alone. He stopped on the way upstairs to pull off his heavy boots to save time. For the same reason he pulled off his coat as he ran through the dining-room and hung it on the corner of the silver closet. Then he jerked off his vest as he ran through the hall and tossed it on a hook on the hatrack, and by the time he reached his own room he was ready to plunge into clean clothes. He pulled out a dresser drawer and began to paw among the things like a Scotch terrier after a rat. “Elinor, where are my shirts?”
“In your dresser drawer.”
“Well, but they ain’t. I’ve pulled out every last thing and there isn’t a thing I’ve ever seen before.”
(Laughing.) “These things scattered around on the floor are all mine; perhaps you haven’t been looking in your own drawer.”
“I don’t see why you couldn’t put my things out for me, when you had nothing to do all morning.”
“Because—because, nobody put mine out. A fair field and no favors, my dear.”
Mr. Man plunged into his shirt. “Gad, no buttons on the neck!”
“Because you have it on wrong side out.”
When his head came through the clock struck ten. “Where’s my shirt studs?”