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I guess you've known things haven't beep going quite right down-town." She was standing at the window combing her hair, but at these words she turned and looked at him. "How do you mean? You've always said there was room for more than one wholesale hardware house in town." Her voice expressed some alarm. "There WAS," said Harold significantly, "but this Clarence Ahearn is a smart man."
As f'r ye, he says, an' tur-rned like a tiger on th' boy an' sthruck him with his ol' leathery hand. Th' boy stood f'r a minyit, an' thin walked out, me with him. I niver see him since. We left Ahearn standin' there, as we used to say iv th' fox in th' ol' counthry, cornered between th' river an' th' wall." "Ye're lucky to be alone," said Mr. Hennessy as he left. "I think so," said Mr. Dooley.
Evylyn was not disturbed over the social end of it but the idea of "Piper Brothers" becoming "The Ahearn, Piper Company" startled her. It seemed like going down in the world. Half an hour later, as she began to dress for dinner, she heard his voice from down-stairs. "Oh, Evie, come down!" She went out into the hall and called over the banister: "What is it?"
"There'll be only one on the job, if we are, and I'll keep him busy to-morrow morning. You go to the market as usual, then go into that big department store, Ahearn & McManus'. There's a mail chute there, next the notion counter on the ground floor. Buy a spool of thread or somethin', and while you're waitin' for change, drop the letter in the box.
Ahearn and laughed. Clarence always used to tell me he had to have a wife he could come home to and say: "Well, we're going to Chicago to-morrow to live, so pack up." I got so I never expected to live ANYwhere." She laughed her little laugh again; Evylyn suspected that it was her society laugh. "Your husband is a very able man, I imagine." "Oh, yes," Mrs. Ahearn assured her eagerly.
All through dinner there was punch, and Evylyn, noticing that Ahearn and Milton Piper and all the women were shaking their heads negatively at the maid, knew she bad been right about the bowl; it was still half full. She resolved to caution Harold directly afterward, but when the women left the table Mrs.
"I was surprised when you said he was coming to dinner." "Evie," he went on, with another slap at his knee, "after January first 'The Clarence Ahearn Company' becomes 'The Ahearn, Piper Company' and 'Piper Brothers' as a company ceases to exist." Evylyn was startled. The sound of his name in second place was somehow hostile to her; still he appeared jubilant. "I don't understand, Harold."
Snobbish town first toward outsider, but not long after know you. People like you" he indicated Ahearn and his wife with a sweeping gesture "all right. Cordial as an'thin' once get by first barrer-bar- barrer " He swallowed, and then said "barrier," repeated it masterfully.
She turned quickly, sought with her eyes for Mrs. Ahearn, slipped toward her. "If you'll excuse me, Mrs. " She had momentarily forgotten the name, but she went right on: "My little girl's been taken sick. I'll be down when I can."
How could she know that this slim, slick young garage mechanic was a woodland creature in disguise a satyr in store clothes a wild thing who perversely preferred to do his own pursuing? How could Miss Bauers know she who cashiered in the Green Front Grocery and Market on Fifty-third Street? Or Miss Olson, at the Rialto ticket window? Or the Celtic, emotional Miss Ahearn, the manicure?
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