"How do you mean?" says I.
"Of course," she goes on, "Mrs. Foote did not actually say that we were on trial socially, but she hinted as much. And she made it quite plain that unless we got started in the right set our case would be utterly hopeless."
"Just think of that!" says I. "Real sweet of her, eh? Sort of inspector general, is she? You should have asked her to show her badge, though."
"Oh, there's no doubt that she speaks with authority," says Vee. "She wasn't snippy about it, either. And chiefly she was trying to warn me against Mrs. Ben Tupper."
"The old girl with the pelican chin and the rovin' eyes?" I asks. "What's the matter with her besides her looks?"
Well, accordin' to Mrs. Pemmy Foote, there was a lot. She had a past, for one thing. She was a pushing, presumptuous person, for another. And, besides, this Benjamin Tupper party—the male of the species—was wholly impossible.
"You know who he is," adds Vee. "The tablet man."
"What?" says I. "'Tupper's Tablets for Indigestion—on Everybody's Tongue.' Him?"
Vee nods. "And they live in that barny stucco house just as you turn off Sagamore Boulevard—the one with the hideous red-tiled roof and the concrete lions in front."
"Goodness Agnes!" says I. "Folks have been indicted for less than that. I've seen Tupper, too; someone pointed him out goin' in on the express only the other mornin'. Looks like a returned Nihilist who'd been nominated in one of the back wards of Petrograd to run for the Duma on a free-vodka platform. He's got wiry whiskers that he must trim with a pair of tin-shears, tufts in his ears, and the general build of a performin' chimpanzee. Oh, he's a rare one, Tupper."