Zip! she hangs up and just then the front door-bell makes good. 

 "See who it is!" I calls to one of the gang, sittin' in the game again. "Tell 'em I'm in Brazil and—" 

 Oh, boy! 

 One of them dead silences took place in the hall and—in walks the wife! 

 For the next five seconds it was so quiet in that flat that a graveyard would seem like a locomotive works alongside of it. Joe Leity starts to whistle soft and low, Abe Katz opens the dumbwaiter and looks down to see what kind of a jump it is and I dropped a hundred aces on the floor. The rest of the gang eases over to the door. 

 "Why—ah—eh—ah, what does this mean?" I says kinda weak.  "I thought you had went to Lakewood." 

 "Well," she says, turnin' the eyes, that used to fill the Winter Garden every night, on the gang, "where d'ye figure I am now? I'll give you three guesses!" 

 "Ahem!" says Joe Leity, "I guess I'll blow! I—" 

 "Me, too!" pipes the gang like a chorus and does a few more vamps to the door. 

 "Why don't you introduce your friends?" says the wife.  "Or maybe you just run across these boys yourself when you come in, heh?" 

 "Excuse!" I says.  "This here's Joe Leity, Abe Katz, Phil Young, Red Dailey, Steve—" 

 "Never mind callin' the roll," she butts in.  "I'll let it go en masse. I'm delighted to meet you all, and I hope you won't run away simply because I'm here." 

 "Oh, no—not at all—we ain't runnin' away!" they says. 

 "There's no reason for you boys runnin' anyways," the wife goes on, "because the elevator is right outside now and I think the boy is holdin' the car for you—" 

 They blowed! 

 "And now," says the wife to me, "what d'ye mean by bringin' them plumbers up here for a union meetin', eh?" 

 "Don't be always knockin'!" I answers, gettin' peeved.  "Them boys is all honest and true, even if they do look a little rough to the naked eye. But how is it you come back to-day when you wasn't due for a month?" 

 "You're tickled to death to see me, ain't you?" she asks, pullin' the 

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