“Blickens, indeed!” says Sadie, eyin’ me sharp, to see if I’m blushin’ or gettin’ nervous. “I never heard you mention any such name.”
“There’s a few points about my past life,” says I, “that I’ve had sense enough to keep to myself. Maybe this is one. Course, if your curiosity——”
“I’m not a bit curious, Shorty McCabe,” she snaps out, “and you know it! But when it comes to——”
“The Misses Blickens,” says Tidson, holdin’ back the draperies with one hand, and smotherin’ a grin with the other.
Say, you couldn’t blame him. What steps in is a couple of drippy females that look like they’d just been fished out of a tank. And bein’ wet wa’n’t the worst of it. Even if they’d been dry, they must have looked bad enough; but in the soggy state they was the limit.
They wa’n’t mates. One is tall and willowy, while the other is short and dumpy. And the fat one has the most peaceful face I ever saw outside of a pasture, with a reg’lar Holstein-Friesian set of eyes,—the round, calm, thoughtless kind. The fact that she’s chewin’ gum helps out the dairy impression, too. It’s plain she’s been caught in the shower and has sopped up her full share of the rainfall; but it don’t seem to trouble her any.
There ain’t anything pastoral about the tall one, though. She’s alive all the way from her runover heels to the wiggly end of the limp feather that flops careless like over one ear. She’s the long-waisted, giraffe-necked kind; but not such a bad looker if you can forget the depressin’ costume. It had been a blue cheviot once, I guess; the sort that takes on seven shades of purple about the second season. And it fits her like a damp tablecloth hung on a chair. Her runnin’ mate is all in black, and you could tell by the puckered seams and the twisted sleeves that it was an outfit the village dressmaker had done her worst on.
Not that they gives us much chance for a close size-up. The lengthy one pikes right into the middle of the room, brushes a stringy lock of hair off her face, and unlimbers her conversation works.
“Gosh!” says she, openin’ her eyes wide and lookin’ round at the rugs and furniture. “Hope we haven’t pulled up at the wrong ranch. Are you Shorty McCabe?”
“Among old friends, I am,” says I, “Now if you come under——”