JERRY BUMPUS
375
But they were even more startled when I dashed up the steps, seized
Tina's hand, and put my mouth on it.
On their own the servants, who it seemed had earlier come to the
windows to study Miss Tina's fit and had stayed on for my entrance, at
that moment trotted out the tea things, and Mr . Sheehan, Ursula
Dolmon , and Tina Buell burst into speech, each on a different track:
Ursula Dolmon reiterating her challenge, though somewhat less
staunchly than before; Mrs. Sheehan expressing hopes that I hadn 't
difficulty finding Bogsedge, isolated as it happened to be; and dear
little Tina....
Fine and excessive though my earlier description is, still it fails to
convey Tina's beauty and its slick skin. As I held her hand , breathing
her perfume-Civet Murmur, or was it Primal Repast?-I saw cumulus
clouds rolling in great bawdy tussles down the sky; I heard the dulcet
slap of cards in the long game of solitaire Goodness plays with Evil;
and as a simper glimmered on the lips of the Angel of Dea th, with a
go ld tooth smack in the middle, I smelled her breath, warm fruit and
fish , as Tina smiled at me and said, "You're pretty."
" Child!" Mrs. Sheehan exclaimed. Then to me, "You mu t forgive
her. She. .. "
"Sir," Ursula Dolmon said so loudly the teacups tottered in their
saucers. "Are you prepared to present Tina Buell a decent prospect?"
"Gracious!" Mrs. Sheehan said. "We're so clumsy. Forgive us, dear
sir. And especially forgive poor Ursula's bluntness. I hope you
shan't. ... "
"Shan't us no shan'ts, Clarinda Sheehan," Ursula Dolmon said.
''I'll speak for myself and I'll speak uninterrupted." Ursula g lared at
her until Mrs. Sheehan bowed her head. " ow. Sir, let's hear your
prospects. ',
I slipped into a chair beside Tina's, facing the ladies, and took out
my cigar case. "With your permission. " I snipped the end of a cheroot
and lit it. Ursula Dolmon eyed every move with the avidity of a great
mongoose. Mrs. Sheehan peeked up with an unctuous smile that urged
me to feel right at home. And Tina! Pearls of spittle g listened in the
corners of her mouth , stretched wide in a smi le both enraptured and
entrancing.
I uttered first a ring of smoke and the three of them watched it
shakily rise, open, and become nothing; and then: "Hark! I believe I
hea r someone coming." They lifted their head in that inevitable and
instinctual way. " Do I hear a carriage rumbling across a wooden
bridge...
?"
But silence lay on th e afternoon like a cow.
"My mistake," I said. " Perhaps he's here already."
