Dryfoos laughed, showing his lower teeth in a way that was at once simple and fierce. "Mr. Fulkerson didn't hardly know as he could get you to leave. I suppose you got used to it there. I never been in your city."
"I had got used to it; but it was hardly my city, except by marriage. My wife's a Bostonian."
"She's been a little homesick here, then," said Dryfoos, with a smile of the same quality as his laugh.
"Less than I expected," said March. "Of course, she was very much attached to our old home."
"I guess my wife won't ever get used to New York," said Dryfoos, and he drew in his lower lip with a sharp sigh. "But my girls like it; they're young. You never been out our way yet, Mr. March? Out West?"
"Well, only for the purpose of being born, and brought up. I used to live in Crawfordsville, and then Indianapolis."
"Indianapolis is bound to be a great place," said Dryfoos. "I remember now, Mr. Fulkerson told me you was from our State." He went on to brag of the West, as if March were an Easterner and had to be convinced. "You ought to see all that country. It's a great country."
"Oh yes," said March, "I understand that." He expected the praise of the great West to lead up to some comment on 'Every Other Week'; and there was abundant suggestion of that topic in the manuscripts, proofs of letter-press and illustrations, with advance copies of the latest number strewn over his table.
But Dryfoos apparently kept himself from looking at these things. He rolled his head about on his shoulders to take in the character of the room, and said to his son, "You didn't change the woodwork, after all."
"No; the architect thought we had better let it be, unless we meant to change the whole place. He liked its being old-fashioned."