"
"Stuff!" I snapped, "I notice she waited to hear it all, and no real
woman ever hated a man for saying he loved her."
CHAPTER XXIX
A BIG NIGHT TO-NIGHT
I carried out the supper to the shelter-house as usual that night, but
I might have saved myself the trouble. Mrs. Dicky was sitting on a box,
with her hair in puffs and the folding card-table before her, and Mr.
Dick was uncorking a bottle of champagne with a nail. There were two or
three queer-smelling cans open on the table.
Mrs. Dick looked at my basket and turned up her nose.
"Put it anywhere, Minnie," she said loftily, "I dare say it doesn't
contain anything reckless."
"Cold ham and egg salad," I said, setting it down with a slam. "Stewed
prunes and boiled rice for dessert. If those cans taste as they smell,
you'd better keep the basket to fall back on. Where'd you get THAT?"
Mr. Dick looked at me over the bottle and winked. "In the next room,"
he said, "iced to the proper temperature, paid for by somebody else, and
coming after a two-weeks' drought! Minnie, there isn't a shadow on my
joy!"
"He'll miss it," I said. But Mr. Dick was pouring out three large
tumblersful of the stuff, and he held one out to me.
"Miss it!" he exclaimed. "Hasn't he been out three times to-day, tapping
his little CACHE? And didn't he bring out Moody and the senator and von
Inwald this afternoon, and didn't they sit in the next room there from
two to four, roaring songs and cracking bottles and jokes.
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