“What’re you trying to find out?”
“I told you last night. I can’t see how that drake keeps those ducks in order.”
“Oh, I guess he don’t keep ’em in order.”
“I tell you he has them under his thumb.”
Jimsy cast a careless eye upon the birds. They had finished the toast and were swimming about. The quacks of the Duchess were merely quacks to him; he did not hear that she was saying to the Countess: “Hah, Hah, Hah! How do you fancy a back seat this morning?”
“One feels mortified, of course,” I explained to Jimsy, “that she should betray her spite so crudely—a sad but common thing in our country.”
“In the name of God, what are you talking about?” demanded Jimsy.
“Oh, I’m not in the least crazy. New York stinks with people like that.”
At this moment the usual thing happened in the pond—the Duchess made a miscalculation. The drake swam suddenly left instead of right, and the Countess jumped to the favored place. Now it was she who quacked backward at her discountenanced rival.
“She is really the sweeter nature of the two,” I said. But Jimsy was attending to the ducks with an awakened interest; in fact, he was now caught in the same fascination that had held me for so many days. He took his hands out of his pockets and followed the ducks keenly.