And Billy responded,—
“Said Plato unto Aristotle,
‘Thank you, I prefer the bottle.’”
“In here, are you?” said their beaming host at the door. “Now, I think you’d find my department of the premises cosier, so to speak.” He nudged Bertie. “Do you boys guess it’s too early in the season for a silver-fizz?”
We must not wholly forget Oscar in Cambridge. During the afternoon he had not failed in his punctuality; two more neat witnesses to this lay on the door-mat beneath the letter-slit of Billy’s room, And at the appointed hour after dinner a third joined them, making five. John found these cards when he came home to go to bed, and picked them up and stuck them ornamentally in Billy’s looking-glass, as a greeting when Billy should return, The eight o’clock visit was the last that Oscar paid to the locked door, He remained through the evening in his own room, studious, contented, unventilated, indulging in his thick notes, and also in the thought of Billy’s and Bertie’s eleventh-hour scholarship, “Even with another day,” he told himself, “those young men could not have got fifty per cent,” In those times this was the passing mark. To-day I believe you get an A, or a B, or some other letter denoting your rank. In due time Oscar turned out his gas and got into his bed; and the clocks of Massachusetts struck midnight.
Mrs. Diggs of the Bird-in-Hand had retired at eleven, furious with rage, but firm in dignity in spite of a sudden misadventure. Her hair, being the subject of a sporting event, had remained steadily fixed in Billy’s mind,—steadily fixed throughout an entertainment which began at an early hour to assume the features of a celebration. One silver-fizz before dinner is nothing; but dinner did not come at once, and the boys were thirsty. The hair of Mrs. Diggs had caught Billy’s eye again immediately upon her entrance to inform them that the meal was ready; and whenever she reentered with a new course from the kitchen, Billy’s eye wandered back to it, although Mr. Diggs had become full of anecdotes about the Civil War. It was partly Grecian: a knot stood out behind to a considerable distance. But this was not the whole plan. From front to back ran a parting, clear and severe, and curls fell from this to the temples in a manner called, I believe, by the enlightened, a l’Anne d’Autriche. The color was gray, to be sure; but this propriety did not save the structure from Billy’s increasing observation. As bottles came to stand on the table in greater numbers, the closer and the more solemnly did Billy continue to follow the movements of Mrs. Diggs. They would without doubt have noticed him and his foreboding gravity but for Mr. Diggs’s experiences in the Civil War.
The repast was finished—so far as eating went. Mrs. Diggs with changeless dudgeon was removing and washing the dishes. At the revellers’ elbows stood the 1820 port in its fine, fat, old, dingy bottle, going pretty fast. Mr. Diggs was nearing the end of Antietam. “That morning of the 18th, while McClellan was holdin’ us squattin’ and cussin’,” he was saying to Bertie, when some sort of shuffling sound in the corner caught their attention. We can never know how it happened. Billy ought to know, but does not, and Mrs. Diggs allowed no subsequent reference to the casualty. But there she stood with her entire hair at right angles. The Grecian knot extended above her left ear, and her nose stuck through one set of Anne d’Autriche. Beside her Billy stood, solemn as a stone, yet with a sort of relief glazed upon his face.
Mr. Diggs sat straight up at the vision of his spouse. “Flouncing Florence!” was his exclamation. “Gee-whittaker, Mary, if you ain’t the most unmitigated sight!” And wind then left him.
Mary’s reply arrived in tones like a hornet stinging slowly and often. “Mr. Diggs, I have put up with many things, and am expecting to put up with many more. But you’d behave better if you consorted with gentlemen.”
The door slammed and she was gone. Not a word to either of the boys, not even any notice of them. It was thorough, and silence consequently held them for a moment.
“He didn’t mean anything,” said Bertie, growing partially responsible.