"Only a couple of Willies from the store," says a gent in his shirt sleeves, givin' us the stare.
From other remarks we heard passed, it was clear the Dillons had been tootin' this party as something fine and classy, and that they wa'n't making good. The signs of frost grows plainer as we gets nearer the scene of the festivities. All the Dillon family was there, right enough, from the youngest kid up. Old Larry has had his face scraped till it shines like a copper stewpan, and him and Mother Dillon is standin' under a green paper bell hung from a hook in the ceiling. I could spot Tom, the coal cart driver, by the ring of dust under his eyelashes; and there was no mistakin' lady Kate, the sales person, with the double row of coronet hair rolls pinned to the top of her head. Over in the corner, too, was Sadie, talkin' to Father Kelley. But there wa'n't any great signs of joy.
The whole party sizes up me and Pinckney as if they was disappointed. I can't say what they was lookin' for from us; but whatever it was, we didn't seem to fill the bill. And just when the gloom is settlin' down thickest, Mother Dillon begins to sniffle.
"Now, mother," says Nora, soothin' like, "remember there's company."
"Ah, bad scran to the lot of yez!" says the old lady. "Where's my Aloysius? Where is he, will ye tell me that?"
"Divvul take such a woman!" says old Larry.
"Tut, tut!" says Father Kelley.
"Will you look at the Bradys now!" whispers Maggie, hoarselike.
It wa'n't easy guessin' which windows in the block was theirs, for every ledge has a pillow on it, and a couple of pairs of elbows on every pillow, but I took it that the Bradys was where they was grinnin' widest. You could tell, though, that the merry laugh was bein' passed up and down, and it was on the Dillons.
And then, as I was tryin' to give Sadie the get-away sign, we hears a deep honk outside, and I sees the folks across the way stretchin' their necks out. In a minute there's a scamperin' in the halls like a stampede at a synagogue, and we hears the "Ah-h-hs!" coming up from below. We all makes a rush for the front and rubbers out to see what's happenin'. By climbin' on a chair and peekin' over the top of the lady Kate's hair puffs, I catches a glimpse of a big yellow and black bodied car, with a footman in a bearskin coat holdin' open the door.