The man wrote, in a round flourish, “Edward Eastman Ellsworth, wife, and son.”
“I’d like three choice rooms, en suite,” he said.
“Gosh!” said Uncle Billy, regretfully. “That’s what Mr. Kamp wanted, fust off, an’ he got it. They hain’t but th’ little room over th’ kitchen left. I’ll have to put you an’ your wife in that, an’ let your boy sleep with th’ driver.”
The consternation in the Ellsworth party was past calculating by any known standards of measurement. The thing was an outrage! It was not to be borne! They would not submit to it!
Uncle Billy, however, secure in his mastery of the situation, calmly quartered them as he had said. “An’ let ’em splutter all they want to,” he commented comfortably to himself.
IV
The Ellsworths were holding a family indignation meeting on the broad porch when the Van Ramps came contentedly down for a walk, and brushed by them with unseeing eyes.
“It makes a perfectly fascinating suite,” observed Mrs. Van Kamp, in a pleasantly conversational tone that could be easily overheard by anyone impolite enough to listen. “That delightful old-fashioned fireplace in the middle apartment makes it an ideal sitting-room, and the beds are so roomy and comfortable.”
“I just knew it would be like this!” chirruped Miss Evelyn. “I remarked as we passed the place, if you will remember, how charming it would be to stop in this dear, quaint old inn over night. All my wishes seem to come true this year.”
These simple and, of course, entirely unpremeditated remarks were as vinegar and wormwood to Mrs. Ellsworth, and she gazed after the retreating Van Kamps with a glint in her eye that would make one understand Lucretia Borgia at last.