“You folks have a good talk,” she benignly advised, and then with a wheezy chuckle, “you gentlemen take a good look at my partner there and see if you notice anything.”

At this Grandma blushingly stroked her hair, and all exclaimed at once on this startling change. Yes, she said, it was true she was wearing a transformation. For years it had been recommended to her by friends who found it astonishing for a woman of her youthful appearance to have gray hair. A purchase of a box of oddments from a fire sale had yielded this wig, and since no one wanted to buy it Grandma had appropriated it for her own use. Moreover, in this business, closely connected with fashions as it was, a woman had to look her best. The wig was nut brown and reared up in luxuriant tiers to a crown of tight curls falling neatly over a high amber comb.

“By Jove, you don’t look a day over thirty-five!” exclaimed Papa.

Grandma explained that she dared not wear the device all the time, for fear her daughter Lois would see her in it and go into a jealous rage. She might be obliged to give it up altogether if a customer should take a fancy to it. She said she had happened to learn from a high-priced authority in Cleveland that this very transformation represented the finest workmanship of its kind outside New York City. Little experiences while wearing it had borne out this theory. For instance, on streetcars in Cleveland perfect strangers would stare and then accost her.

“Excuse me, madam,” they had said more than once, “that is one of the most beautiful wigs I ever saw.” Parties would cross the street, staring, and say, “You don’t know me from Adam but I just have to ask you where you got that wonderful transformation. I’ve never seen anything like it and I’ve traveled all over the country.”

“I feel younger in it, too,” confessed Grandma. “Mrs. Carmel’s been after me to get my teeth pulled out too and get a set but that means money.”

“I tell her if she wants to beautify herself, might as well go the whole hog,” whistled Mrs. Carmel, chuckling so that the velvet bow she wore in her own hair fell in the pot of boiling candy and had to be fished out with a dipper.

The strains of the orchestra came through the walls and a drum roll shook the floor.

“Dance,” Grandma explained complacently. “There’s something going on here every minute. Sometimes two things.”

She produced a bakery cake and a pot of coffee from the stove, and passed these around.

“You can’t beat bakery cake,” she said. “Nothing tastes better than good bakery bread, too. I like being up to the minute. I don’t listen to all that talk about old-fashioned home baking. I’ve tasted plenty of soggy home baking, I can tell you.”

Mr. Hartwell and Papa examined the wares with professional interest, recommending a touch here and there. Mr. Hartwell recalled that by chance he had a bottle of whiskey on his hip he had happened absentmindedly to pick up in his room and begged permission to serve himself and friend Willard. Permission was granted at once.