“What YOU lookin’ so self-satisfied about?” he inquired, and added in his knowing way, “I saw you, all right, cutie!”
“Where’d you see me?”
“Downtown.”
“This afternoon, you mean, Walter?”
“Yes, ‘this afternoon, I mean, Walter,’ ” he returned, burlesquing her voice at least happily enough to please himself; for he laughed applausively. “Oh, you never saw me! I passed you close enough to pull a tooth, but you were awful busy. I never did see anybody as busy as you get, Alice, when you’re towin’ a barge. My, but you keep your hands goin’! Looked like the air was full of ‘em! That’s why I’m onto why you look so tickled this evening; I saw you with that big fish.”
Mrs. Adams laughed benevolently; she was not displeased with this rallying. “Well, what of it, Walter?” she asked. “If you happen to see your sister on the street when some nice young man is being attentive to her–-“
Walter barked and then cackled. “Whoa, Sal!” he said. “You got the parts mixed. It’s little Alice that was ‘being attentive.’ I know the big fish she was attentive to, all right, too.”
“Yes,” his sister retorted, quietly. “I should think you might have recognized him, Walter.”
Walter looked annoyed. “Still harpin’ on THAT!” he complained. “The kind of women I like, if they get sore they just hit you somewhere on the face and then they’re through. By the way, I heard this Russell was supposed to be your dear, old, sweet friend Mildred’s steady. What you doin’ walkin’ as close to him as all that?”
Mrs. Adams addressed her son in gentle reproof, “Why Walter!”
“Oh, never mind, mama,” Alice said. “To the horrid all things are horrid.”
“Get out!” Walter protested, carelessly. “I heard all about this Russell down at the shop. Young Joe Lamb’s such a talker I wonder he don’t ruin his grandfather’s business; he keeps all us cheap help standin’ round listening to him nine-tenths of our time. Well, Joe told me this Russell’s some kin or other to the Palmer family, and he’s got some little money of his own, and he’s puttin’ it into ole Palmer’s trust company and Palmer’s goin’ to make him a vice-president of the company. Sort of a keep-the-money-in-the-family arrangement, Joe Lamb says.”
Mrs. Adams looked thoughtful. “I don’t see–-” she began.
“Why, this Russell’s supposed to be tied up to Mildred,” her son explained. “When ole Palmer dies this Russell will be his son-in-law, and all he’ll haf’ to do’ll be to barely lift his feet and step into the ole man’s shoes. It’s certainly a mighty fat hand-me- out for this Russell! You better lay off o’ there, Alice. Pick somebody that’s got less to lose and you’ll make better showing.”
Mrs. Adams’s air of thoughtfulness had not departed. “But you say this Mr. Russell is well off on his own account, Walter.”
“Oh, Joe Lamb says he’s got some little of his own. Didn’t know how much.”
“Well, then–-“
Walter laughed his laugh. “Cut it out,” he bade her. “Alice wouldn’t run in fourth place.”
Alice had been looking at him in a detached way, as though estimating the value of a specimen in a collection not her own. “Yes,” she said, indifferently. “You REALLY are vulgar, Walter.”
He had finished his meal; and, rising, he came round the table to her and patted her good-naturedly on the shoulder. “Good ole Allie!” he said. “HONEST, you wouldn’t run in fourth place. If I was you I’d never even start in the class. That frozen-face; gang will rule you off the track soon as they see your colours.”
“Walter!” his mother said again.
“Well, ain’t I her brother?” he returned, seeming to be entirely serious and direct, for the moment, at least. ”
“But what’s it all ABOUT?” Alice cried. “Simply because you met me downtown with a man I never saw but once before and just barely know! Why all this palaver?”
“‘Why?’” he repeated, grinning. “Well, I’ve seen you start before, you know!” He went to the door, and paused. “I got no date to-night. Take you to the movies, you care to go.”
She declined crisply. “No, thanks!”
“Come on,” he said, as pleasantly as he knew how.
“Give me a chance to show you a better time than we had up at that frozen-face joint. I’ll get you some chop suey afterward.”
“No, thanks!”
“All right,” he responded and waved a flippant adieu. “As the barber says, ‘The better the advice, the worse it’s wasted!’ Good-night!”
Alice shrugged her shoulders; but a moment or two later, as the jar of the carelessly slammed front door went through the house, she shook her head, reconsidering. “Perhaps I ought to have gone with him. It might have kept him away from whatever dreadful people are his friends—at least for one night.”
“Oh, I’m sure Walter’s a GOOD boy,” Mrs. Adams said, soothingly; and this was what she almost always said when either her husband or Alice expressed such misgivings. “He’s odd, and he’s picked up right queer manners; but that’s only because we haven’t given him advantages like the other young men. But I’m sure he’s a GOOD boy.”
She reverted to the subject a little later, while she washed the dishes and Alice wiped them. “Of course Walter could take his place with the other nice boys of the town even yet,” she said. “I mean, if we could afford to help him financially. They all belong to the country clubs and have cars and–-“
“Let’s don’t go into that any more, mama,” the daughter begged her. “What’s the use?”
“It COULD be of use,” Mrs. Adams insisted. “It could if your father–-“
