Budlong finally grew so suspicious that she had to accept; or
leave the impression that the relatives were burglars or
counterfeiters in hiding. And they were not--they were pitifully
honest.
The result was even worse than she feared. Mr. Stubblebine's cousin
was so shy that he never said a word except when it was pulled out of
him, and then he said, "Yes, ma'am"!
In Carthage when you are at a dinner party and you don't quite catch
the last remark, you don't snap "What?" or "How?" or "Wha' jew say?"
Whatever your home habits may be, at a dinner party or before
comp'ny, you raise your eyebrows gracefully and murmur, "I beg your
pardon."
But Mr. Stubblebine's rural cousin grunted "Huh?"--like an Indian
chief trying to scare a white general. And he was perfectly frank
about the intimate processes of mastication.
And when he dropped a batch of scalloped oysters into his watch
pocket he solemnly fished them-out with a souvenir after-dinner
coffee spoon having the Statue of Liberty for a handle and Brooklyn
Bridge in the bowl.
And the wretch's wife was so nervous that she talked all the time
about people the others had never seen or heard of. And she said she
"never used tomattus." And she wasn't ashamed of what she was
chewing either.
Mrs. Stubblebine would have felt much obliged to fate if she had been
presented with an apoplectic stroke.
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