Yet his visit itself was uneventful enough. It was not until Mrs. Ostermaier’s call on Saturday evening that anything began to develop. I remember the evening most distinctly. Our dear Tish was still in her dressing gown, after a very unpleasant incident of the morning, when she had inflated a pair of water wings and gone swimming. Unluckily, when some distance out she had endeavored to fasten the water wings with a safety pin to her bathing garments and the air at once began to escape. When Charlie Sands reached the spot only a few bubbles showed where our unfortunate Tish had been engulfed. She had swallowed a great deal of water, and he at once suggested bailing her out.
“By and large,” he said, “I’ve been bailing you out for the last ten years. Why not now?”
But she made no response save to say that she had swallowed a fish. “Get me a doctor,” she said thickly. “I can feel the thing wriggling.”
“Doctor nothing!” he told her. “What you need is a fisherman, if that’s the case.”
But she refused to listen to him, saying that if she was meant to be an aquarium she would be one; and seeing she was firm, he agreed.
“Very well,” he said cheerfully. “But why not do the thing right while you’re about it? How about some pebbles and a tadpole or two?”
The result of all this was that Tish, although later convinced there was no fish, was in an uncertain mood that evening as we sat about the radio. She had, I remember, got Chicago, where a lady at some hotel was singing By the Waters of Minnetonka. Turning away from Chicago, she then got Detroit, Michigan, and a woman there was singing the same thing.
Somewhat impatiently, she next picked up Atlanta, Georgia, where a soprano was also singing it, and the same thing happened with Montreal, Canada. With a strained look, our dear Tish then turned to the national capital, and I shall never forget her expression when once more the strains of Minnetonka rang out on the evening air.
With an impatient gesture, she shoved the box away from her, and the various batteries and so on fell to the floor. And at that moment Mrs. Ostermaier came in breathless, and said that she and Mr. Ostermaier had just got Denver, and heard it quite distinctly.
“A woman was singing,” she said. “Really, Miss Carberry, we could hear every word. She was singing——”