"Ah-h-h, yes!" echoes Pansy.
"James," puts in Aunty just then, "fill Mr. Stidler's glass."
Merry wa'n't shyin' it any more. He insists on clickin' rims with the Hibbs sisters, and they does it real kittenish. Merry stops in the middle of his salad to unload that old one about the Irishman that the doctor tried to throw a scare into by tellin' him if he didn't quit the booze he'd go blind within three months. You know—when Mike comes back with, "Well, I'm an old man, and I'm thinkin' I've seen most everything worth while." Pansy and Violet shook until their chairs creaked, and one of 'em near swallows her napkin tryin' to stop the chuckles.
In all the time I've known J. Meredith I'd never heard him try to spring anything comic before; but havin' made such a hit with this one he follows with others, robbin' the almanac regardless.
"Oh, you deliciously funny man!" gasps Pansy, tappin' him playful on the shoulder.
Course, it wa'n't any cabaret high jinks, you understand. Meredith was just limbered up a little. In the parlor afterwards while we was havin' coffee he strings off quite a fancy line of repartee, fin'lly allowin' himself to be pushed up to the piano, where he ripples through a few things from Bach and Beethoven and Percy Moore. It's near eleven o'clock when the Hibbs sisters get their wraps on and Merry starts to walk home with 'em.
"You might wait for me, Torchy," says he, pausin' at the door.
"Nonsense!" says Aunt Emma Jane.
"Time young people were in bed. Good night, young man."
There don't seem to be any chance for a debate on the subject; so I goes up to my room. But it's a peach of a night, warm and moony; so after I turns out the light I camps down on the windowseat and gazes out over the shrubby towards the water. I could see the top of the Hibbs house and a little wharf down on the shore.