FullReads

He introduced us to quite a lot of the comp’ny–men mostly. He’d see a school of ’em in a corner, or under a palm tree or somewheres, and steer us over in that direction and make us known to all hands. Then he begin to show us off, so to speak, get Jonadab telling ’bout the boats he’d sailed, or something like it– and them fellers would laugh and holler, but Phil’s face wouldn’t shake out a reef: he looked solemn as a fun’ral all the time. Jonadab and me begun to think we was making a great hit. Well, we was, but not the way we thought. I remember one of the gang gets Phil to one side after a talk like this and whispers to him, laughing like fun. Phil says to him: “My dear boy, I’ve been to thousands of these things–” waving his flipper scornful around the premises–” and upon honor they’ve all been alike. Now that I’ve discovered something positively original, let me enjoy myself. The entertainment by the Heavenly Twins is only begun.”

I didn’t know what he meant then; I do now.

The marrying was done about eight o’clock and done with all the trimmings. All hands manned the yards in the best parlor, and Peter and Belle was hitched. Then they went away in a swell turnout–not like the derelict hacks we’d seen stranded by the Cashmere depot–and Jonadab pretty nigh took the driver’s larboard ear off with a shoe Phil gave him to heave after ’em.

After the wedding the folks was sitting under the palms and bushes that was growing in tubs all over the house, and the stewards– there was enough of ’em to man a four-master–was carting ’round punch and frozen victuals. Everybody was togged up till Jonadab and me, in our new cutaways, felt like a couple of moulting blackbirds at a blue-jay camp-meeting. Ebenezer was so busy, flying ’round like a pullet with its head off, that he’d hardly spoke to us sence we landed, but Phil scarcely ever left us, so we wa’n’t lonesome. Pretty soon he comes back from a beat into the next room, and he says:

“There’s a lady here that’s just dying to know you gentlemen. Her name’s Granby. Tell her all about the Cape; she’ll like it. And, by the way, my dear feller,” he whispers to Jonadab “if you want to please her–er–mightily, congratulate her upon her boy’s success in the laundry business. You understand,” he says, winking; “only son and self-made man, don’t you know.”

Mrs. Granby was roosting all by herself on a sofy in the parlor. She was fleshy, but terrible stiff and proud, and when she moved the diamonds on her shook till her head and neck looked like one of them “set pieces” at the Fourth of July fireworks. She was deef, too, and used an ear-trumpet pretty nigh as big as a steamer’s ventilator.

Maybe she was “dying to know us,” but she didn’t have a fit trying to show it. Me and Jonadab felt we’d ought to be sociable, and so we set, one on each side of her on the sofy, and bellered: “How d’ye do?” and “Fine day, ain’t it?” into that ear-trumpet. She didn’t say much, but she’d couple on the trumpet and turn to whichever one of us had hailed, heeling over to that side as if her ballast had shifted. She acted to me kind of uneasy, but everybody that come into that parlor–and they kept piling in all the time– looked more’n middling joyful. They kept pretty quiet, too, so that every yell we let out echoed, as you might say, all ’round. I begun to git shaky at the knees, as if I was preaching to a big congregation.