“I don’t either,” he agreed. “But I do. That’s the hell—I beg your pardon—that’s the deuce of it.”
It was following this meeting that the mysterious events occurred with which I commenced this narrative. And though there may be no connection it was only a day or two later that I read aloud to Aggie an item in a newspaper stating that an elderly woman who refused to give her name had sent a golf ball through the practice net in a downtown store and that the ball had broken and sent off a fire alarm, with the result that the sprinkling system, which was a new type and not dependent on heat, had been turned on in three departments. I do know, however, that Tish’s new velvet hat was never seen from that time on, and that on our shopping excursions she never entered that particular store.
In coming now to the events which led up to the reason for Nettie Lynn cutting us, and to Charlie Sands’ commentary that his wonderful aunt, Letitia Carberry, should remember the commandment which says that honesty is the best policy—I am sure he was joking, for that is not one of the great Commandments—I feel that a certain explanation is due. This explanation is not an apology for dear Tish, but a statement of her point of view.
Letitia Carberry has a certain magnificence of comprehension. If in this magnificence she loses sight of small things, if she occasionally uses perhaps unworthy methods to a worthy end, it is because to her they are not important. It is only the end that counts.
She has, too, a certain secrecy. But that is because of a nobility which says in effect that by planning alone she assumes sole responsibility. I think also that she has little confidence in Aggie and myself, finding us but weak vessels into which she pours in due time the overflow from her own exuberant vitality and intelligence.
With this in mind I shall now relate the small events of the winter. They were merely straws, showing the direction of the wind of Tish’s mind. And I dare say we were not observant. For instance, we reached Tish’s apartment one afternoon to find the janitor there in a very ugly frame of mind. “You threw something out of this window, Miss Carberry,” he said, “and don’t be after denying it.”
“What did I throw out of the window?” Tish demanded loftily. “Produce it.”
“If it wasn’t that it bounced and went over the fence,” he said, “I’d be saying it was a flat-iron. That parrot just squawked once and turned over.”
“Good riddance, too,” Tish observed. “The other tenants ought to send me a vote of thanks.”
“Six milk bottles on Number Three’s fire escape,” the janitor went on, counting on his fingers; “the wash line broke for Number One and all the clothes dirty, and old Mr. Ferguson leaning out to spit and almost killed—it’s no vote of thanks you’ll be getting.”