PARTISAN REVIEW
95
when I went out. Giants to frighten people! I'll say you're
ill,
have
a fever."
The next day he was querulous and feverish. He said:
"Don't answer the doorbell. I have a terrible headache, (I'm
feverish. I'm worried. I can't trust my business partner."
After dark, he went out and returned with a valise. He brought
the valise into the dining room and opened it on the table. He
said to Gilbert:
"A friend of mine got a lot of shirts, very cheap, a bargain,
from the warehouse, no middleman: do you want any? I can let you
have them at two-fifty, but it's for quick sale. Look at the material."
Mrs. Anderson laughed with pride and joy, drooped when
Gilbert refused. She ran to show him a shirt, so well made, such a
good design, modem. He had paid five dollars for the last one and
you could sift peas through it.
Gilbert calmly shut the valise, picked it up and put it into
one of the large unused cupboards in the old kitchen.
She was shocked: "Such a shame not to help and the boy
shows enterprise ; he is trying to get money to open a men's store,
all
the latest for men, on Broadway."
The young man went out on business very early the next day
and when he was gone, Gilbert told her about the shirts:
"They're hot, Mamma!"
She believed him; she was terrified. But when Gilbert came back
from work on Monday, in the afternoon, two were in the kitchen,
the gratified old aunt and the yarn-spinning youth, cutting into an
iced cake with cherries on top, which he had provided.
