“We are very glad to welcome you to the McKee family,” was what was written on the pad.
“Very happy, indeed, to be with you,” wrote back Le Moyne—and realized with a sort of shock that he meant it.
The kindly greeting had touched him. The greeting and the breakfast cheered him; also, he had evidently made some headway with Tillie.
“Don't you want a toothpick?” she asked, as he went out.
In K.'s previous walk of life there had been no toothpicks; or, if there were any, they were kept, along with the family scandals, in a closet. But nearly a year of buffeting about had taught him many things. He took one, and placed it nonchalantly in his waistcoat pocket, as he had seen the others do.
Tillie, her rush hour over, wandered back into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. Mrs. McKee was reweighing the meat order.
“Kind of a nice fellow,” Tillie said, cup to lips—“the new man.”
“Week or meal?”
“Week. He'd be handsome if he wasn't so grouchy-looking. Lit up some when Mr. Wagner sent him one of his love letters. Rooms over at the Pages'.”
Mrs. McKee drew a long breath and entered the lamb stew in a book.
“When I think of Anna Page taking a roomer, it just about knocks me over, Tillie. And where they'll put him, in that little house—he looked thin, what I saw of him. Seven pounds and a quarter.” This last referred, not to K. Le Moyne, of course, but to the lamb stew.
“Thin as a fiddle-string.”
“Just keep an eye on him, that he gets enough.” Then, rather ashamed of her unbusinesslike methods: “A thin mealer's a poor advertisement. Do you suppose this is the dog meat or the soup scraps?”
Tillie was a niece of Mrs. Rosenfeld. In such manner was most of the Street and its environs connected; in such wise did its small gossip start at one end and pursue its course down one side and up the other.
“Sidney Page is engaged to Joe Drummond,” announced Tillie. “He sent
Prev.
Back
Top