“All right; go on,” he said. “Can’t you hurry those beasts of yours up?”
And so it was that, about seven o’clock, the cabman drew up before a small, detached frame house on the Mill Road. It was so hot that the kitchen windows were wide open, and one could see the table drawn up between them, and a little man in his shirt-sleeves eating his supper. Opposite him, by the other window, was a girl with a fan in her hand, and between them were two other persons, for Johnny was entertaining that night. Dave Duggan, uncomfortable, he knew not why (although it certainly was not the weather, for he had, with great good sense, removed his coat), sat on Annie’s left; and next to him, beside Johnny, was an enormously fat woman, in a sort of loose white sack. This was Mrs. Pugsley, who was one of those neighboring ladies of thwarted stepmother potentialities. “But you never know what’ll happen,” Mrs. Pugsley often remarked, and dropped in this hot July night in a friendly way to see if Annie was making her father comfortable. It was Mrs. Pugsley’s opinion that all this learning wasn’t no good. “Better know how to dish a meal’s victuals,” said Mrs. Pugsley, “than be readin’ story papers all the time. That’s what them high-school girls does mostly.”
The room was faintly lighted by a kerosene lamp on the mantelpiece; but the real radiance was in Johnny’s face, as he looked across a bunch of roses in the middle of the narrow table at his Annie.
“Annie walked out two miles to get them flowers,” he said.
“Must ’a’ wanted something to do,” said Mrs. Pugsley.
“I’d ’a’ got ’em for you, Annie,” Dave said bashfully, “if I’d a-known you wanted ’em.” And it was just then that the carriage drew up at the door.
Dick, hot and disappointed and disgusted at the coachman’s stupidity in bringing him into this obviously mechanic’s suburb, leaned out to say, “Drive on!” And then he saw her.
There was a flutter in the tenement at seeing a hack draw up. Johnny Graham rose, seeing in a burst of fancy an important and hasty job, and a carriage sent to convey him to a wilderness of leaks or broken tips. Mrs. Pugsley conceived the hack to be a summons from a lady friend who had expected to need her services on a felicitous occasion, and was instantly agitated, and got up panting, and saying:--
