Tom'll be here pretty soon--store
ought to be closed by now. We'll have some ready for him."
"Right, Bill," agreed James T. Duncan.
Mr. Wrenn lost. He departed, after secretively obtaining not
one, but two pitchers, in one of which he got a "pint of dark"
and in the other a surprise. He bawled upstairs to Nelly,
"Come on down, Nelly, can't you? Got a growler of ice-cream
soda for the ladies!"
It is true that when Tom arrived and fell to conversational
blows with James T. Duncan over the merits of a Tom Collins Mr.
Wrenn was not brilliant, for the reason that he took Tom Collins
to be a man instead of the drink he really is.
Yet, as they went up-stairs Miss Proudfoot said to Nelly:
"Mr. Wrenn is quiet, but I do think in some ways he's one of the
nicest men I've seen in the house for years. And he is so earnest.
And I think he'll make a good pinochle player, besides Five Hundred."
"Yes," said Nelly.
"I think he was a little shy at first.... _I_ was always
shy.... But he likes us, and I like folks that like folks.
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