The Argosy, June 1904 — page 86: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

572 It was the fat man’s turn. Ile yawned, and, looking not at the thin man but out of the window, he said: “Funny how I always get sleepy after re i er THE ARGOSY. a ineal. Guess [ll just go to the other coach and take a little snooze.” And Rumble rumbled off to the parlor car. THE WIDOW AND THE AGENT. BY RUTH NETTLETON. A story of house hunting, in the course of which two people found that for which they had not been jooking. M RS. FISBY’S blood was leaping with the intoxication of the hunt, and she ascended the front steps of the thirteenth house with an elastic- ity that caused the patient little agent who accompanied her to groan aloud. “T have a sort of feeling in my bones that this is going to be the one | want,” said Mrs. Fisby with conviction, as the agent’s latch-key admitted them to a spacious vestibule, lately rejuvenated by a fresh coat of blood-red kalsomine. “This is one of our handsomest houses, madam,” the agent assured her as the long hall, papered in a design of enormous flaming poppies, came Into view. Mrs. Fisby gave an exclamation of delight. “ My land, ain’t that pretty? I always did like color, and plenty of it,” and the lady planted her stout person between the folding doors that led into the par- lor and took in the combined effect of hall and vestibule. “They don’t match very well, I must say, but if you look at ’em separate they’re all right. Folks used to say that about me and Mr. F., me being big and him little—about your size, I should say, and I always did——” Here the agent broke in timidly, his small voice faint with hunger and fa- {igne: ‘“ T don’t want to hurry you, madam, but as it is now four:thirty, and there are five more numbers on the list, I would suggest that we continue to look over the house.” Mrs. Fisby stopped short in her dis- course, and eyed her small companion with real consternation. “Well, forevermore! If J haven’t PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG comlel ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED kept you going since nine o’clock this morning without a bite. We might’s well open up the lunch here as any- where, I guess. I daresay the pickles are all soaked up in the sandwiches by this time, too. Here ”—to the agent’s aston- ishment she produced from beneath her cape a generous package—*‘ you open this up and set it out on the stairs there while I just run over the house a little ——] can cat easier if I get my mind set- tled.” A picnic with a strange lady in an empty house had never come within the agent’s experience heretofore, and he stood for a moment holding the lumpy package irresolutely; then he turned to the stairs, as he was bidden, and began to unwrap the lunch in a dazed fashion. Meantime Mrs. Fisby flitted ponder- ously from room to room, exclaiming over the scroll-work which adorned the back parlor mantel, the glass-doored china closet built into the dining-room wall, and various contrivances in the kitchen which took her fancy. She ascended to the second floor by the back stairs, and went into eestasies over the new porcelain bath-tub with a water-lily design painted around the top, and the stationary wash-stands which supphed each of the four bed- rooms with water, and had also been the source of malaria fever to the former tenants of the house, had she but known it. By the time she was ready to return to the first floor again the agent’s native politeness had succumbed before the ir- resistible appeal of a fat ham sandwich, and he had just taken an enormous bite when he became conscious that Mrs. Fisby was gazing down at him over the NOOLKS