Budlong's "den." This was the place where she
kept the furniture that she didn't dare keep in the parlor.
People who had never come to see her in spite of her prehensile
telephone, dropped in to pay up some musty old call that had lain
unreturned for years. People who had always come formally, even
funereally, rushed in as informally and with as devouring an enthusiasm
as old chums. People who used to run in informally now drove up in
vehicles from MacMulkin's livery stable; or if they came in their own
turn-outs they had the tops washed and the harness polished, and the
gardener and furnaceman who drove, had his hat brushed, was not allowed
to smoke, and was urged to sit up straight and for heaven's sake to
keep his foot off the dashboard.
People who had been in the habit of devoting a day or two to cleaning
up a year's social debts and went up and down the streets dropping
doleful calls like wreaths on headstones, walked in unannounced of
mornings. It was now Mrs. Budlong that had to keep dressed up all day.
Everybody accepted the inevitable invitations to have a cup of tea,
till the cook struck. Cook said she had conthracted to cuke for a
small family, not to run a continurous bairbecue. Besides she had to
answer the doorbell so much she couldn't get her hands into the dough,
before they were out again.
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