Stanley just stares at me and after that confines his remarks to statin' that he don't care for mint sauce on roast lamb and that he never takes coffee at night.
"Huh!" says I to Vee afterward. "When does he spring that jolly stuff? Or was that conundrum about July cotton a vaudeville gag that got past me?"
No, I hadn't missed any cues. Vee explains that young Mr. Rawson has been sent up to New York as assistant manager of a Savannah firm of cotton brokers and is taking his job serious.
"That's good," says I, "but he don't need to lug it to the dinner table, does he?"
We gave the Rawsons a week to get settled before droppin' in on 'em for an evenin' call, and I'd prepared for it by readin' up on the cotton market. Lucky I did, too, for we discovers Stanley at his desk with a green eye-shade draped over his classic brow and a lot of crop reports spread out before him. Durin' the next hour, while the girls were chattin' merry in the other corner of the livin' room, Stanley gave me the straight dope on boll weevils, the labor conditions in Manchester, and the poor prospects for long staple. I finished, as you might say, with both ears full of cotton.
"Stanley's going to be a great help—I don't think," says I to Vee. "Why, he's got cotton on the brain."
"Now let's not be critical, Torchy," says Vee. "Marge told me all about it, how Stanley is a good deal worried over his business and so on. He's really doing very well, you know, but he can't seem to leave his office troubles behind, the way you do. He wants to make a big success, but he's so afraid something will go wrong——"
"There's no surer way of pullin' down trouble," says I. "Next thing he knows he'll be tryin' to sell cotton in his sleep, and from that stage to a nerve sanitarium is only a hop."
Not that I tries to reform Stanley. Nay, nay, Natalia. I may go through some foolish motions now and then, but regulatin' the neighbors ain't one of my secret vices. We allows the Rawsons to map out their own program, which seems to consist in stickin' close to their own fireside, with Marge on one side readin' letters about the gay doin's of her old friends at home, and Stanley on the other workin' up furrows in his brow over what might not happen to spot cotton day after tomorrow. They'd passed up a chance to join the Country Club, had declined with thanks when Vee asked 'em to go in on a series of dinner dances with some of the young married set, and had even shied at taking an evening off for one of Mrs. Robert Ellins' musical affairs.
"Thanks awfully," says Stanley, "but I have no time for social frivolities."