“Raised to eighteen a week yesterday,” he said. “Been pricing flats around Morningside. You want to start untying those apron strings and unpinning that cap, old girl.”
“Oh, Tommy!” said Celia, with her broadest smile. “Won’t that be enough? I got Betty to show me how to make a cottage pudding. I guess we could call it a flat pudding if we wanted to.”
“And tell no lie,” said Thomas.
“And I can sweep and polish and dust—of course, a parlor maid learns that. And we could whistle duets of evenings.”
“The old man said he’d raise me to twenty at Christmas if Bryan couldn’t think of any harder name to call a Republican than a ‘postponer,’” said the grocer’s young man.
“I can sew,” said Celia; “and I know that you must make the gas company’s man show his badge when he comes to look at the meter; and I know how to put up quince jam and window curtains.”
“Bully! you’re all right, Cele. Yes, I believe we can pull it off on eighteen.”
As he was jumping into the wagon the second parlor maid braved discovery by running swiftly to the gate.
“And, oh, Tommy, I forgot,” she called, softly. “I believe I could make your neckties.”
“Forget it,” said Thomas decisively.