And stop eying those books; you can't
get at them with anything less than a cold-chisel!
"But why should you depend on pictures?" Mrs. Bates observed, presently.
"See the boy yourself. Go down-stairs next time he calls. Oh, he will
call again, I assure you," concluded Susan Bates, archly.
"Tell him to inquire for ma, and send in a card for her, too," whispered
Jane. "Rosy's getting awfully sticky."
"'Sticky'?"
"Yes; fussy, stiff, critical--that's what it means, as near as I can make
out. It's a word Dick brought home from London."
"H'm," said Susan Bates, "I'll remember it."
The men, meanwhile, sat round the dining-room table. Marshall smoked with
the others and tried to forget his boutonniere--the first he had ever
worn.
"I shall make them very small and unobtrusive," Susan Bates had said;
"only a dozen violets." Marshall noticed that Bates had put his flowers
into his right-hand button-hole, and Bingham his into his left. Jane saw
her father hesitate; finally he imitated Bates. "Well, that's cutting it
pretty fine," thought the girl; "I wonder if there is a right or wrong
way. But think of pa with any button-hole bouquet at all! We shall budge
him yet!" She smiled; she knew the forces were all arrayed against him
to-night.
"What this town needs more than anything else," Bingham was saying, "is a
big assembly hall--one with a capacity of ten thousand, say. Something
not too fine--we've got that already; and something not too rough--we've
had that in plenty.
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