I love to go swimmin’

With bow-legged women

And dive between their legs.

“Isn’t he a scream?” shrieked Mrs. Babbitt.

Frank Whitney was pale. “Let’s get him out, McAllister. He’s drunk as a catfish.” He started towards the offender, but Hopestill, who without trying to stop the song, had been gazing up at her grandfather as if supplicating him either to forgive this indignity or to put a stop to it, raised her hand in an apostolic gesture which said, “He has asylum here.”

“He’s perfectly all right, Frank,” she said. “He’s only gay. He inherited two million dollars yesterday and he has every right to sing if he wants to.”

“Repeat refrain!” cried Mr. Babbitt, covering his face with his hands while his thorax hopped convulsively like a jumping bean. Mr. Morgan obliged him and the words traveled slowly through his nose.

The door to the library flung open and crashed against the paneling. Miss Pride, dressed for dinner in garnets and black silk, stood on the threshold appraising the terrain. The first to speak was Harry Morgan who, going towards her with the sober countenance that appears in certain stages of drunkenness, said, “Mrs. Mather, I presume?” Miss Pride’s enameled lenses suddenly could focus only on distant objects. She looked at me and said, “The letters, Sonie, which you promised to mail,” and held them out. Mr. Morgan’s rejected paw faltered uncertainly to his side.

“Good evening, Helen.” She addressed Mrs. Babbitt frigidly.

“Good evening, Cousin Lucy,” said Mr. Babbitt, bounding toward her, “I’m glad to see you.” Miss Pride did not share his pleasure but glared straight through his head as if the gimlets of her eyes could puncture the optic nerve. She came to me with the letters. “Hello, Frank. Is Mary coming on for the holidays?” and as she took his hand, she gave me the bunch of envelopes and adroitly, so that no one could see, she pinched the fleshy part of my thumb between two fingernails so hard that I nearly cried out with pain.

For half a minute she stood there while Frank Whitney gave her news of his family. She did not release my thumb until he was finished and then she said, “I must go this minute. Hopestill, bring Frank when you and Philip come to the Countess’. I know Berthe will be delighted.”

“We’re all coming, Auntie,” said Hopestill. “This is Mr. Morgan, Aunt Lucy,”

“Good evening, sir,” said Miss Pride and glanced up at the portrait of her father. “Papa looks en prise. Do set his men up again, Philip.” And she left the room. The only proof I had that she had been angry were the two white crescent marks on my thumb made, in her rage at something with which I had no connection, in the way one hurls a teacup to the floor because the contents of a letter have infuriated him.