"Say," I breaks in, "gimme that number again, will you? Suppose I could duck meetin' Westy if I came the first evenin'?"
"If you're at all afraid of him, you shouldn't run the risk," comes back Vee.
"Chance is my middle name," says I. "Only him stickin' around does make a room so crowded. I didn't know but he might miss a night occasionally."
Vee sticks the tip of her tongue out. "Just two during the last ten days, if you want to know," says she.
"Huh!" says I. "Must think he holds a season ticket."
I couldn't make out, either, what it was that Vee seems so amused over; for as near as I can judge she was never very strong for Sappy herself. Maybe it was just a string she was handin' me.
Havin' decided on that, I waits patient until eight-fifteen Monday evenin', and then breezes cheery and hopeful through the Ulls' front door and into the front room. No Westy in sight, or anybody else. The maid says the young ladies are in somewhere, and she'll tell 'em I've come.
So I wanders about amongst the furniture, that's set around almost as thick as in a showroom,—heavy, fancy pieces, most likely ones that had been sent up from the store as stickers. The samples of art on the walls struck me as a bit gaudy too, and I was tryin' to guess how it would seem if you had to live in that sort of clutter continual, when out through the slidin' doors from the lib'ry appears Sappy the Constant.
"The poor prune!" thinks I. "I wonder if I've got time to work up some scheme of puttin' the skids under him?"
But instead of givin' me the haughty stare as usual he rushes towards me smilin' and excited. "Oh, I say!" he breaks out. "Torchy, isn't it? Well, I—I've got a big piece of news."