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That careless use of the term "Boss" was afterward seen to be unfortunate for Solon. They remembered it against him. "That's right," said Westley Keyts. "Let's be diplomatic with him." "How would you begin, Westley, if you don't mind telling us?" Solon had already begun to shape a scheme of his own.
One Westley Keyts, for example, lounging in the doorway of his meat-shop, renewed acquaintance with the wanderer, who remembered him as a glum-faced but not bad-hearted chap. Names recalled and hands shaken, Mr. Keyts began to lament the simple ways of an elder day, glancing meanwhile with honest disapproval at a newly installed competitor across the street.
Perhaps she was nettled by the boredom she had been made to endure without just provocation; perhaps the fashionable fumes of varnish had been toxic to her unaccustomed senses. At any rate she now compromised herself regrettably. Mrs. Westley Keyts had been thinking up something to say, something choice that should yet be sufficiently vague not to incriminate her.
He did not name these solicitous friends; but it was an easy suspicion that they were the Democratic leaders, who thought by this means to draw votes from the Republican candidate to the advantage of their own, who, otherwise, was conceded to have no hope of election in a county overwhelmingly Republican. It may be told with adequate confidence that Westley Keyts was not of their number.
Keyts became timid at the last moment and let it go at "Shakspere." "Oh, Shakspere of course!" said most of the ladies at once, and those not quick enough to utter it concertedly looked it almost reprovingly at the speaker. A silence fell, as if every one must have time to recover from this trivial platitude. But it was a silence outrageously shattered by Miss Caroline, who said: "O dear!
She'll drive up to git Cal from his office at four-thirty it's right across there over the bank where that young fellow is settin' in the window that's young Cal Denney, studyin' law with Blake. You just wait and see she'll drive up in about six minutes." The wanderer waited, out of pure cordiality to Mr. Keyts.
At the very nethermost point of his downward swoop Solon Denney was raised to a height so dizzy that even the erstwhile sceptic spirit of Westley Keyts abased itself before him, frankly conceding that diplomacy's innocent and mush-like surface might conceal springs of a terrible potency.
There was talk of domestic concerns, sprightly town gossip, mirth, wit, and anecdotes. Aunt Delia McCormick told her parrot story, which was risqué, even when no gentlemen were present, for the parrot said "damn it!" in the course of his surprisingly human repartee under difficulties. Mrs. Westley Keyts, the bars being down, thereupon began another parrot story.
"And she's got to live, though Wes' Keyts says he isn't so sure of that he says I'm lucky enough to have an earthquake made up especially for this case and if she lives, she must have ways and means. And then I have my own troubles. Say, I never knew I was so careless about my language until she came along. She says only an iron will can correct it.
She read stray items that commended themselves to her critical judgment, such as, "A wind blew last week that you could lean up against like the side of the house;" or "Westley Keyts has a bran-new 'No Admittance! sign over the door of his slaughter-house. We don't see why. He could put up a 'Come one, come all! sign and still not get us into the place. They're messy."
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