I’d waded through the food programme as far as makin’ a choice between tapioca puddin’ and canned peaches, when in drifts a couple that I knew, the minute I gets my eyes on ’em, must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway. Who else in that little one-horse town would be sportin’ a pair of puttee leggin’s and doeskin ridin’ breeches? That was Bob’s makeup, includin’ a flap-pocketed cutaway of Harris tweed and a corduroy vest. They fit him a little snug, showin’ he’s laid on some flesh since he had ’em built. Also he’s a lot grayer than I expected, knowin’ him to be younger than DeLancey.
As for Mrs. Bob—well, if you can remember how the women was dressin’ as far back as two years ago, and can throw on the screen a picture of a woman who has only the reminders of her good looks left, you’ll have her framed up. A pair of seedy thoroughbreds, they was, seedy and down and out.
“I knew it must be Mr. and Mrs. Bob Cathaway”
I was wonderin’ if they still indulged in them lively fam’ly debates, and how soon I’d have to begin dodgin’ dishes; but they sits down across the table from me and hardly swaps a word. All I notices is the scornful way Lizzie asks if they’ll have soup, and the tremble to Bob Cathaway’s hand as he lifts his water tumbler.
As there was only us three in the room, and as none of us seemed to have anything to say, it wa’n’t what you might call a boisterous assemblage. While I was waitin’ for dessert I put in the time gazin’ around at the scenery, from the moldy pickle jars at either end of the table, over to the walnut sideboard where they kept the plated cake basket and the ketchup bottles, across to the framed fruit piece that had seen so many hard fly seasons, and up to the smoky ceilin’. I looked everywhere except at the pair opposite.
Lizzie was balancin’ the soup plates on her left arm and singsongin’ the bill of fare to ’em. “Col’-pork-col’-ham-an’-corn-beef-’n’-cabbage,” says she.
If Bob Cathaway didn’t shudder at that, I did for him. “You may bring me—er—some of the latter,” says he.
I tested the canned peaches and then took a sneak. On one side of the front hall was the hotel parlor, full of plush furniture and stuffed birds. The office and bar was on the other. I strolls in where half a dozen Clam Creekers was sittin’ around a big sawdust box indulgin’ in target practice; but after a couple of sniffs I concludes that the breathin’ air is all outside.