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Grannis's humble room, for Dora felt that the friends to whom she was going were not like those she left behind; and very lovingly her arms wound themselves around the poor widow's neck as she wept her last adieu, begging Mrs. Grannis not to forget her, but to write sometimes, and tell her of the lady who had so kindly befriended her.
The foreman came over to the bed. "In the hotel. In the bridal chamber, they informed me, to be exact." Ben did not smile. Memory was clear now. "What happened after they got me last night?" Grannis's face showed distinct animation. "A lot of things and mighty fast. You missed the best part." Of a sudden he paused and looked at his charge doubtfully. "But I forgot.
He could not afford to subscribe regularly to either of the publications, but purchased their back numbers by the score, almost solely for the pleasure he took in binding them. "What you alus sewing up them books for, Mister Grannis?" asked Maria, as she began rummaging about in Old Grannis's closet shelves. "There's just hundreds of 'em in here on yer shelves; they ain't no good to you."
"It would look to me that you were doing it," he remarked. "I'd like to ask for information, who is if you ain't?" The clatter of dishes suddenly ceased, and Graham's labor stopped in sympathy. "My boy," he asked in reply, "were you ever married?" Beneath its coat of tan, Grannis's face flushed; but he did not answer. A second passed; then the plucking of feathers was continued.
On this occasion she presented herself at the door of Old Grannis's room late in the afternoon. His door stood a little open. That of Miss Baker was ajar a few inches. The two old people were "keeping company" after their fashion. "Got any junk, Mister Grannis?" inquired Maria, standing in the door, a very dirty, half-filled pillowcase over one arm.
"That's her Aunt Sarah," exclaimed Dora, springing joyfully forward; but she paused and started back, as she met the cold, scrutinizing glance of Eugenia's large black eyes. "Are you the child I am looking for?" asked Eugenia, without deigning to notice Mrs. Grannis's request that she would walk in.
However, Old Grannis's door stood a little ajar, and on hearing Trina at Miss Baker's room, the old Englishman came out into the hall. "She's gone out," he said, uncertainly, and in a half whisper, "went out about half an hour ago. I I think she went to the drug store to get some wafers for the goldfish."
Old Grannis had drawn his chair close to the wall so close, in fact, that he could hear Miss Baker's grenadine brushing against the other side of the thin partition, at his very elbow, while she rocked gently back and forth, a cup of tea in her hands. Old Grannis's occupation was gone.
She had found out that the wall-paper in Old Grannis's room was the same as that in hers. "It has led me to thinking, Doctor McTeague," she exclaimed, shaking her little false curls at him. "You know my room is so small, anyhow, and the wall-paper being the same the pattern from my room continues right into his I declare, I believe at one time that was all one room.
They clamored into each other's faces over Old Grannis's cracked pitcher, over Miss Baker's silk gaiters, over Marcus Schouler's whiskey flasks, reaching the climax of disagreement when it came to McTeague's instruments. "Ah, no, no!" shouted Maria. "Fifteen cents for the lot! I might as well make you a Christmas present! Besides, I got some gold fillings off him; look at um."
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