Beta Book

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In the kitchen was the noise of Goaty, ungovernable Goaty, aged
eight, still snivelingly washing, though not cleaning, the
incredible pile of dinner dishes. With a trail of hesitating
remarks on the sadness of sciatica and windy evenings Mr. Wrenn
sneaked forth from the august presence of Mrs. Zapp and mounted
to paradise--his third-floor-front.
It was an abjectly respectable room--the bedspread patched;
no two pieces of furniture from the same family; half-tones
from the magazines pinned on the wall. But on the old marble
mantelpiece lived his friends, books from wanderland.
Other friends the room had rarely known. It was hard enough
for Mr. Wrenn to get acquainted with people, anyway, and Mrs.
Zapp did not expect her gennulman lodgers to entertain. So Mr.
Wrenn had given up asking even Charley Carpenter, the assistant
bookkeeper at the Souvenir Company, to call. That left him the
books, which he now caressed with small eager finger-tips.
He picked out a P. & O. circular, and hastily left for fairyland.


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