Before she was out of bed, she had invitations abroad for a convalescent tea, and everybody said, "Here we go again!"
If strangers visited Carthage, Mrs. Budlong counted them her clients the moment they arrived. Of course, the merely commercial visitors she left to the hackmen at the station, but friends or relatives of prominent people could not escape Mrs. Budlong's well-meant attentions. It was sometimes embarrassing when relatives appeared—for everybody has Concealed Relatives that he is perfectly willing to leave in concealment.
Mrs. Alex. (pronounced Ellick) Stubblebine never forgave Mrs. Budlong for dragging into the limelight some obscure cousins of her husband's who had drifted into Carthage to borrow money on their farm. Mrs. Stubblebine was always bragging about her people, her own people that is. Her husband's people, of course, were after all only Stubblebines, while her maiden name was Dilatush; and the Dilatushes, as everybody knew, were related by marriage to the Tatums.
But these were Stubblebines that came to town. Mrs. Stubblebine could hardly slam the door in their faces, but she would fain have locked the doors after them. She would not even invite them out on the front porch. She told them the back porch was cosier and less conspicuous. And then Mrs. Budlong had to call up on the telephone and sing out in her telephoniest tone:
"Oh, my dear, I've just this minute heard you have guests—some of your dear husband's relatives. Now they must come to me to dinner to-morrow. Oh, it isn't the slightest trouble, I asSure you. I'm giving a little party anyway. I won't take no for an answer."
And she wouldn't. Mrs. Stubblebine fairly perspired excuses, but Mrs. Budlong finally grew so suspicious that she had to accept; or leave the impression that the relatives were burglars or counterfeiters in hiding. And they were not—they were pitifully honest.
The result was even worse than she feared. Mr. Stubblebine's cousin was so shy that he never said a word except when it was pulled out of him, and then he said, "Yes, ma'am"!
In Carthage when you are at a dinner party and you don't quite catch the last remark, you don't snap "What?" or "How?" or "Wha' jew say?" Whatever your home habits may be, at a dinner party or before comp'ny, you raise your eyebrows gracefully and murmur, "I beg your pardon."
But Mr. Stubblebine's rural cousin grunted "Huh?"—like an Indian chief trying to scare a white general. And he was perfectly frank about the intimate processes of mastication.
And when he dropped a batch of scalloped oysters into his watch pocket he solemnly fished them-out with a souvenir after-dinner coffee spoon having the Statue of Liberty for a handle and Brooklyn Bridge in the bowl.