“Come on up, Ruth!” called out Nancy. “Come up and hear about our par-tee!”
Ruth came up promptly, and the story of the broken water pipe was presently being told her, brokenly.
“How perfectly—thrill-ing!” she commented in her well known characterization of the affected Vera. “But you should have had Nero turn off the water—”
“I’ll bet he could too,” shouted Ted from his room. Ted never lost a chance to praise Nero.
“But just listen to my story,” Ruth begged. “I’ve got a thrilling yarn, too.”
“Then, wait until I get propped up for it,” ordered Nancy. “I can’t hear comfortably when I’m down.” She put her two pillows under her shoulders and assumed a most affected air of the tired society girl after her dance. Even a cap was improvised from a twisted stocking, a lacy robe was concocted from her thin, soft slip, and the luxurious effect was completed by Ruth piling upon the bed a bunch of mussed up store paper—the morning mail!
“There now,” said Ruth, “I hope you can hear. Although I must say you are not well cast. The character for you, Nan, is that of a short haired lady at a big desk, her eyes bulging out of goggles and her waist line strapped into a belt. You know—”
“Yes, I know,” admitted Nancy, “but I like this better—it’s more becoming, isn’t it?” Another pose and a shift of the lacy robe. Then Nancy appeared ready to hear Ruth’s story.
“You sold the place!” Ruth blurted out without a hint of its coming.
“The place?”