Keeping up with Lizzie | Page 7

p'int where she could give him so much advice an' information. The result was natural. She was irritated by the large cubic capacity--the length, breadth, and thickness of his ignorance and unrefinement; he was dazed by the length, breadth, an' thickness of her learning an' her charm. He didn't say a word. He bowed his head before this pretty, perfumed casket of erudition.
"'You like Europe,' I says.
"'I love it,' says she, 'It's the only place to live. There one finds so much of the beautiful in art and music and so many cultivated people.'
"Lizzie was a handsome girl, an' had more sense than any o' the others that tried to keep up with her. After all, she was Sam's fault, an' Sam was a sin conceived an' committed by his wife, as ye might say. She had made him what he was.
"'Have you seen Dan Pettigrew lately?' Lizzie asked.
"'Yes.' I says. 'Dan is goin' to be a farmer.'
"'A farmer!" says she, an' covered her face with her handkerchief an' shook with merriment.
"'Yes,' I says. 'Dan has come down out o' the air. He's abandoned folly. He wants to do something to help along.'
"'Yes, of course,' says Lizzie, in a lofty manner. 'Dan is really an excellent boy--isn't he?'
"'Yes, an' he's livin' within his means--that's the first mile-stone in the road to success,' I says. 'I'm goin' to buy him a thousand acres o' land, an' one o' these days he'll own it an' as much more. You wait. He'll have a hundred men in his employ, an' flocks an' herds an' a market of his own in New York. He'll control prices in this county, an' they're goin' down. He'll be a force in the State.'
"They were all sitting up. The faces o' the Lady Henshaw an' her daughter turned red.
"'I'm very glad to hear it, I'm sure,' said her Ladyship.
"'I wasn't so sure o' that as she was, an' there, for me, was the milk in the cocoanut. I was joyful.
"'Why, it's perfectly lovely!' says Lizzie, as she fetched her pretty hands together in her lap.
"'Yes, you want to cultivate Dan,' I says. 'He's a man to be reckoned with.'
"'Oh, indeed!' says her Ladyship.
"'Yes, indeed!' I says, 'an' the girls are all after him.'
"I just guessed that. I knew it was unscrupulous, but livin' here in this atmosphere does affect the morals even of a lawyer. Lizzie grew red in the face.
"'He could marry one o' the Four Hundred if he wanted to,' I says. 'The other evening he was seen in the big red tourin'-car o' the Van Alstynes. What do you think o' that?'
"Now that was true, but the chauffeur had been a college friend o' Dan's, an' I didn't mention that.
"Lizzie had a dreamy smile in her face.
"'Why, it's wonderful!' says she. 'I didn't know he'd improved so.'
"'I hear that his mother is doing her own work,' says the Lady Henshaw, with a forced smile.
"'Yes, think of it,' I says. 'The woman is earning her daily bread--actually helpin' her husband. Did you ever hear o' such a thing! I'll have to scratch 'em off my list. It's too uncommon. It ain't respectable.'
"Her Ladyship began to suspect me an' retreated with her chin in the air. She'd had enough.
"I thought that would do an' drew out o' the game. Lizzie looked confident. She seemed to have something up her sleeve besides that lovely arm o' hers.
"I went home, an' two days later Sam looked me up again. Then the secret came out o' the bag. He'd heard that I had some money in the savings-banks over at Bridgeport payin' me only three and a half per cent., an' he wanted to borrow it an' pay me six per cent. His generosity surprised me. It was not like Sam.
"'What's the matter with you?' I asked. 'Is it possible that your profits have all gone into gasoline an' rubber an' silk an' education an' hardwood finish an' human fat?'
"'Well, it costs so much to live,' he says, 'an' the wholesalers have kept liftin' the prices on me. Now there's the meat trust--their prices are up thirty-five per cent.'
"'Of course,' I says, 'the directors have to have their luxuries. You taxed us for yer new house an' yer automobile an' yer daughter's education, an' they're taxin' you for their steam-yachts an' private cars an' racin' stables. You can't expect to do all the taxin'. The wholesalers learnt about the profits that you an' others like ye was makin', an' they concluded that they needed a part of 'em. Of course they had to have their luxuries, an' they're taxin' you--they couldn't afford to have 'em if they didn't. Don't complain.'
"'I'll come out all right,' he says. 'I'm goin' to raise my whole schedule fifteen per cent.'
"'The people won't stand it--they