“You can’t call on many that you’d be bothered with calling on without it. Sydney Gray tried calling on Margaretta on her day in a bicycle suit. He had ridden fifty miles, and was hot and dusty and perspiring. He had the impudence to go into Margaretta’s spick and span rooms and ask for a cup of tea. She was so sweet to him that he came away hugging himself—but he never got asked there again, and every once in awhile he says to some one, ‘Queer, isn’t it, that Mrs. Stanisfield gives me the go-by. I don’t know what I’ve done to offend her.’”
“Suppose we come back to Berty,” observed Tom. “If all the women here have cats, what does she want to start a farm for?”
“The women aren’t all supplied. The demand is increasing, and many would buy here that wouldn’t send away for one. Berty is more shrewd than you think. These cats sell for five and six dollars apiece at the least, and some are as high as twenty. I shouldn’t a bit wonder if it would turn out to be a good business speculation.”
“Well, then, you just meet some of the fellows in my office to-morrow evening and arrange for a house and lot for this man who is to boss the cats,” said Tom, dryly.
“All right, I’ll come—maybe Roger will, too.”
“Good night,” said Tom, “I’m off.”
“Good night,” returned Bonny, laconically, and, standing with his hands thrust in his pockets, he was looking down the street, when Tom suddenly turned back.
“I say, Bonny, your grandmother must have a good history of the Revolution.”
“She has two or three.”
“Ask her to lend me one, will you? I half forget what I learned in school.”