Keeping up with Lizzie | Page 7

she had o' talking'>
"'Tell how ye hobnobbed with the Queen o' Italy,' Sam says.
"'Oh, father! Hobnobbed!' says she. 'Anybody would think that she and
I had manicured each other's hands. She only spoke a few words of
Italian and looked very gracious an' beautiful an' complimented my
color.'
"Then she lay back in her chair, kind o' weary, an' Sam asked me how
was business--just to fill in the gap, I guess. Liz woke up an' showed
how far she'd got ahead in the race.
"'Business!' says she, with animation. 'That's why I haven't any patience
with American men. They never sit down for ten minutes without
talking business. Their souls are steeped in commercialism. Don't you
see how absurd it is, father? There are plenty of lovely things to talk
about.'
"Sam looked guilty, an' I felt sorry for him. It had cost heavy to educate
his girl up to a 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.