“What ails you, Priss? Just seeing some joke you heard last night?”
Priss snapped, “I was thinking.”
“You flatter yourself,” said Pet. “But I suppose you've got to get it off your chest. I'll be the goat. What is it?”
Prissy would have liked to punish the cat by not telling her a single word of it, but he could not withhold the scandal another moment.
“Well, I'll tell you the oddest thing you ever heard in all your life.”
Pretending to tell it to Pet, he was reaching out with voice and eyes to muster the rest. He longed for a megaphone and cursed such big rooms.
“I was passing through the Grand Central to take my train up here, you understand, and who should I see walk in from an incoming express, you understand, but—who, I say, should I see but—oh, you never would guess—you simply never would guess. Nev-vir-ir!”
“Who cares who you saw,” said Pet, and viciously started to change the subject, so that Prissy had to jump the prelude.
“It was Jim Dyckman. Well, in he comes from the train, you understand, and looks about among the crowd of people waiting for the train—to meet people, you understand.”
Pet broke in, frantically: “Yes, I understand! But if you say 'understand' once more I'll scream and chew up the furniture!”