"Thank you," says she crisp, adjustin' her picture hat. "It isn't often that I am obliged to depend on—on strangers." And while Vee still has her mouth open, sort of gaspin' from the slam, the lady has marched up the steps and disappeared.
"Now I guess you know where you get off, eh, Vee?" says I chuckly. "You will pass up your new neighbors."
"How absurd of her!" says Vee. "Why, I never dreamed that I had offended her by not calling."
"Well, you've got the straight dope at last," says I. "She's as fond of us as a cat is of swimmin' with the ducks. Say, my right arm is numb from being so close to that cold shoulder she was givin' me. Catch me doin' the rescue act for her again."
"Still," says Vee, "they have been livin out here nearly a year, haven't they? But then——"
At which she proceeds to state an alibi which sounds reasonable enough. She'd rather understood that the Garveys didn't expect to be called on. Maybe you know how it is in one of these near-swell suburbs! Not that there's any reg'lar committee to pass on newcomers. Some are taken in right off, some after a while, and some are just left out. Anyway, that's how it seems to work out here in Harbor Hills.
I don't know who it was first passed around the word, or where we got it from, but we'd been tipped off somehow that the Garveys didn't belong. I don't expect either of us asked for details. Whether or not they did wasn't up to us. But everybody seems to take it that they don't, and act accordin'. Plenty of others had met the same deal. Some quit after the first six months, others stuck it out.
As for the Garveys, they'd appeared from nowhere in particular, bought this big square stucco house on the Shore road, rolled around in their showy limousine, subscribed liberal to all the local drives and charity funds, and made several stabs at bein' folksy. But there's no response. None of the bridge-playing set drop in of an afternoon to ask Mrs. Garvey if she won't fill in on Tuesday next, she ain't invited to join the Ladies' Improvement Society, or even the Garden Club; and when Garvey's application for membership gets to the Country Club committee he's notified that his name has been put on the waitin' list. I expect it's still there.
But it's kind of a jolt to find that Mrs. Garvey is sore on us for all this. "Where does she get that stuff?" I asks Vee, after we get home. "Who's been telling her we handle the social blacklist for the Roaring Rock district of Long Island?"
"I suppose she thinks we have done our share, or failed to do it," says Vee. "And perhaps we have. I'm rather sorry for the Garveys. I'm sure I don't know what's the matter with them."