“How were the girls at Grosse Pointe Village?” inquired Han solicitously of the pagan Rabnon.
“How was the girl, you mean!” chirped Aerial. “Why, along in August he telegraphed me, ‘A girl has been seen in Grosse Pointe Village. What shall I do?’”
“What did he dew?” inquired the scandal-seeking Mrs. Stephens.
“Don’t know,” said Aerial. “I telegraphed back, ‘Compromise’, and let it go at that!”
“How shiffless!” cried Mrs. Stephens. And at the same moment the deep base roar of Mr. Stephens was heard calling for water, for she had fainted from the shock of Aerial’s remark, being a perfect lady.
“Why pick on me?” countered Rabnon, when the excitement had subsided. “The girls of Grosse Pointe Village are all right. One of them entertained me this summer with an account of how an empty taxi-cab once rolled up to Dobbs Ferry, and Cherrywold got out. You can’t beat that for a masterly bit of description!”
Thus roused from thoughts of “all for love and love for all”, the slandered Cherrywold girded himself against the powers of cynicism.
“You are a pack of blasphemous cowards all!” he cried. “It has been alleged that Mr. and Mrs. Stephens are the only people in the world who still believe in fairies, and that Jonah was swallowed by the whale, but I believe—”
“‘What troubles you, my little one? The dawn is far away,’” soothed Han. But, refusing to be calmed by a snatch of one of his own lullabies, Cherrywold was only prevented from assaulting his Oriental acquaintance by main force.
“You! You c-can’t SPELL!” he thundered. And the office crashed in ruins.