“I’ll get a pint of beer,” said McGibney. “Can I leave youse two without there being a clinch? You like a little ale in it, don’t you, Clara?”
“Don’t never mind me!” said Clara restlessly. “I just remember I left the gas burning and him sleeping his buns off. Do you think the gas would go out and then start up again and not burning? I’ve heard tell of such cases. Not meaning to go back to him, maybe I’d better go back and turn the gas out.”
“Do go back, Clara!” urged Mrs. McGibney, feeling through the sheet for Clara’s hand and impulsively seizing Clara’s nose, trying again for the hand, closing fingers upon Clara’s ear, Clara leaning over, with head near her knees, “Give him another chance. A wife’s place is at home. Don’t mind what others tell you—your husband is dearer to you than all the rest of the world. Go back and make him promise to do better.”
“I don’t wish him no harm,” said Clara, hesitatingly. “This time I’ve flew the coop on him forever, even if he is the nicest little man in the world when he has a mind to be—if I thought the gas would go out on him, I might go back and turn down the gas, anyway.”
Oh, then, here was a fine chance for Mrs. McGibney to bustle. Down came everything on the lines, as if it were Monday night in the back yard. Down came everything from the backs of chairs and from picture frames. Back into a bundle with everything! Big white turnip again, loose, sprawling turnip-tops.
“I might try him again for a week, anyway,” decided Clara. Out and away and back home with her big white, turnip and its pouter-pigeon effect, too bulky for her arms to go around, her chin lost in fluttering turnip-tops; back home with bundle, alarm clock, looking-glass, box of baking-powder and tintypes taken one almost impossibly happy day at Coney Island.
An evening or two later. McGibney out for a walk. Mrs. McGibney up to her elbows in the washing that had driven him out, for if he had remained in he would have had to carry boilers of water to the stove from the sink in the hall. So McGibney had said, “Marietta, I ain’t getting fresh air enough. I don’t sleep good unless I take a little walk in the evening.” Mrs. McGibney had to fill the boiler one dishpanful at a time and that was satisfactory to McGibney.
Rap on the door. Mrs. McGibney quickly concealed socks with holes in them and turned to the door. Vain little Mrs. McGibney! She paused to rummage through the wash until she found curtains. They were very fine lace curtains. The very fine curtains were placed where a caller would surely see them and note how very fine they were. Then Mrs. McGibney’s hand did around and around on the door knob, hand slippery with soap-suds, until the slipperiness wore off and she could open the door. She exclaimed: “Why, Tommy! come right in.” The “nicest little man in the world” was an uneasy, squirming, twisting, little man; bald-headed; Hebraic nose like a number six inclining at forty-five degrees; chin with a dimple looking like a bit gouged out of it; very neat; fussy. And a very polite little man, scraping, bowing, grinning.
“Sit down, Tommy. You won’t have much room to stir. The old man is out, but will be back almost any minute. Sit down, but first I’ll trouble you to fill the boiler for me, if you don’t mind. How is Clara?”
Tommy seemed to scrape and bow to the boiler, before lifting it, seemed to scrape with his right foot and bow to the wash-tub as he passed it and went scraping and bowing down to the sink, filled the boiler, came back with it, set it on the stove and stood grinning, prepared to scrape and bow, if given half a chance to, until invited again to sit down.