“Good Lord, Billl” exclaimed James T. Duncan.
“I’ll make it.”
And he did. He arose a victor. There was no uneasiness, but rather all the social polish of Mrs. Arty’s at its best, in his manner, as he crossed to Mrs. Ebbitt’s chair and asked: “How is Mr. Ebbitt to-night? Pretty rheumatic?” Miss Proudfoot offered him a lime tablet, and he accepted it judicially. “I believe these tablets are just about as good as Park & Tilford’s,” he said, cocking his head. “Say, Dunk, I’ll match you to see who rushes a growler of beer. Tom’ll be here pretty soon—store ought to be closed by now. We’ll have some ready for him.”
“Right, Bill,” agreed James T. Duncan.
Mr. Wrenn lost. He departed, after secretively obtaining not one, but two pitchers, in one of which he got a “pint of dark” and in the other a surprise. He bawled upstairs to Nelly, “Come on down, Nelly, can’t you? Got a growler of ice-cream soda for the ladies!”
It is true that when Tom arrived and fell to conversational blows with James T. Duncan over the merits of a Tom Collins Mr. Wrenn was not brilliant, for the reason that he took Tom Collins to be a man instead of the drink he really is.
Yet, as they went up-stairs Miss Proudfoot said to Nelly: “Mr. Wrenn is quiet, but I do think in some ways he’s one of the nicest men I’ve seen in the house for years. And he is so earnest. And I think he’ll make a good pinochle player, besides Five Hundred.”
“Yes,” said Nelly.
“I think he was a little shy at first…. I was always shy…. But he likes us, and I like folks that like folks.”
“Yes!” said Nelly.