"Eh?" says I, prickin' up my ears. "Whose man?"
"Oh, Edna Pulsifer's absurd ditch digger," says Ferdie. "He's a young engineer, you know, that she's been interested in for a couple of years. Her father put a stop to it once; kept her in Munich for ten months—and that's a perfectly deadly place out of season, you know. But it doesn't seem to have done much good."
I grins. Surprisin' how cheerful I could be so long as it was a case of Miss Pulsifer's young man. I pumps the whole tale out of Ferdie,—how this Mr. Bert Gilkey—cute name too—had been writin' her letters all the time from out West, how he'd been seized with a sudden fit, wired on that he must see her once more, and had rushed East. Then how Pa Pulsifer had caught 'em lalligaggin' out by the hedge, had talked real rough to Gilkey, and ordered him never to muddy his front doormat again.
"And now," goes on Ferdie, "he sends word to Edna that he means to try it once more, no matter what happens, and everyone is all stirred up."
"So that accounts for the nervous motions, eh?" says I. "What does Pa Pulsifer have to say to this defi?"
"Goodness!" says Ferdie, shudderin'. "He doesn't know. No one dares tell him a word. If he found out—well, it would be awful!"
"Huh!" says I. "One of these fam'ly ringmasters, is he?"
That was it, and from Ferdie's description I gathered that old Adam K. was a reg'lar domestic tornado, once he got started. Maybe you know the brand? And it seems Pa Pulsifer was the limit. So long as things went his way he was a prince,—right there with the jolly haw-haw, fond of callin' wifey pet names before strangers, and posin' as an easy mark,—but let anybody try to pull off any programme that didn't jibe with his, and black clouds rolled up sudden in the West.
"I do hope," goes on Ferdie, "that nothing of that sort occurs while we are here."
So did I, for more reasons than one. What I wanted was peace, and plenty of it, with Vee more or less disengaged.