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Plooie Of Our Square
by
“Does your–do you do this sort of thing often?” asked the Bonnie Lassie with a queer sort of resonance in her voice.
The big man answered, in a tone which suggested that he was smiling: “One cannot visit all the brave men who suffered for Belgium. But there is a special reason here, the matter of the great and greatly loved lady whom the little Garin saved.”
“I see,” said the Bonnie Lassie softly.
After the big man had made his adieux, we sat silent for some minutes. Presently she spoke; there was wonder and something else in her voice.
“Plooie!” she said, and that was all.
“You are crying,” I said.
“I’m not,” she retorted indignantly. “But you ought to be. For your injustice.”
“If we all bewept our injustices,” said I oracularly, “Noah would have to come back and build a new ark for a bigger flood than his.”
“What do you think of him?” said the Bonnie Lassie.
“As a weather-prophet, he was unequaled. As an expert animal-breeder, his selections were at times ill-advised.”
“Don’t be tiresome, Dominie. You know that I’m not interested in Noah.”
“As to our romantic visitant,” I said, “I think that Cyrus the Gaunt would better be watchful. I’ve never known anyone else except Cyrus to produce such an emotional effect upon you.”
“Don’t be school-girlish!” admonished the Bonnie Lassie severely. “Poor old Dominie! He doesn’t know what’s going on under his very nose. Where are your eyes?”
“In Mendel’s top drawer, I suppose…. The question is how are we going to make it up to Plooie?”
“I don’t think you need worry about that,” returned the Bonnie Lassie loftily.
Nor was there any occasion for worry. Two days later there occurred an irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city’s reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky Mike with his important notebook and high-poised pencil, regarding with wonder and disdain their quiet and unimpressive methods.) A freshly painted sign across the front of Plooie’s basement, was the magnet that drew them:
Emile Garin & Wife
Umbrella Mender & Porch Cleanser
to
His Majesty
The King of the Belgians
(By Royal Warranty)
No; Plooie and Annie Oombrella need no help from the humble now. Their
well-deserved fortune is made.