But I was sorry for Purdy just the same. I could see him, over there at Bombazoula, in a suit of lavender pajamas, tryin' to organise a cotillion with a lot of heavy weight brunettes, wearin' brass rings in their noses and not much else. And all next day I kept wonderin' if Aunt Isabella's scheme was really goin' to pan. So, when Purdy rushes in about four o'clock, and wants me to come up and take a look at the layout, I was just about ripe for goin' to see the show.
"But I hope we can shy aunty," says I. "Sometimes I get along with these old battle axes first rate, and then again I don't; and what little reputation you got left at home I don't want to queer."
"Oh, that will be all right," says Purdy. "She has heard of you from Pinckney, and she knows about how you helped me to get the snakes."
"Did they fit in?" says I.
"Come up and see," says Purdy.
And it was worth the trip, just to get a view of them rooms. Nobody but a batty old woman would have ever thought up so many jungle stunts for the second floor of a brownstone front.
"There!" says Purdy. "Isn't that tropical enough?"
I took a long look. "Well," says I, "I've never been farther south than Old Point, but I've seen such things pictured out before now, and if I'm any judge, this throws up a section of the cannibal belt to the life."
It did too. They had the dark shades pulled down, and the light was kind of dim; but you could see that the place was chock full of ferns and palms and such. The parrots was hoppin' around, and you could hear water runnin' somewheres, and they'd trained them spotted snakes around the rubber trees just as natural as if they'd crawled up there by themselves.
While we was lookin' Aunt Isabella comes puffin' up the stairs.