Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1913-07-27
HONORIA BATS ONE OUT
BY SEWELL FORD

poor,-tels you how they live, the number to a
family, how many they stow away in room, how
many cubic feet of air space to person, and what
the chances of any of EN- Twin beyond forty.
Say, she talks about the poor like you me
would about red ants or brown-tailed moths.
So there was two | had to dodge, maxim the
prospects of an hours wait all the more enter
tainin. | didn't take any chance of runnin' the
Wodgett gantlet again; but slips out through
one of the French windows onto the side
anda. The most invitin' thing in sight there is
one of these couch hammocks that someone has
swung around that the open side faces out.
There's book of Bernard Shaw's plays tossed
careless in the corner too, and as | punches
couple of sofa cushions into shape under my head
l gathers that in. Thinks l, Nobody can see
me here | nights well dip in and find out what
you'll do to kill time if you're real desperate?
Think of that! Me readin' one of Barney Shaw's
plays!
Anyway, that's what starts out to do. But,
starts right in at Page l. No skippin' the openin'
remarks. So inside the next fifteen twenty min
utes I've got fairly under way with the preface.
Maybe you know the kind he writes? Honest, l
looked it up afterwards, and there eighty-nine
pages of preliminaries to seventysix of play. And
OF course never got to the play at all.
Fact is, don't know just how far I did
get for tryin to follow gent who's dom men,
tai somersauts and back handsprngs, argun in
zigzags, and provin' first that blue is pink and
then that it would be green if it didn't have SO
much alum IN 1t-well, expect got little mud
died up.
Besides, it's one of these limp, sultry after
moons, with the bees buzzin' away in the honey
suckle just overhead, and the hammocks mighty
mf'table, and I'd put in rather a husky lunch
before comm up too. Not that I'm in the habit
of goin' dopy in the daytime, and l want plan
min any sesta then; but something of that kind
must have happened. / don't know how it was,
but I'd lost track of Shaw sometime before, and
then the first thing l knew that buzzin' noise
had changed to something that sounded like Miss
vian at her best, or worst, and all of a sudden
,ives start that tumbles the book onto the floor
h slam.
III, OH" That was squeal from Vivian, sure
enough.
'S-s-sh' comes another voice, hissin it out COM
ndin'.
Then there's whispers 1 hears sleuthy steps ap-
,achn, and just as lifts my head up over the ham,
ok back who should l glarin' down at me but
S Honoria Wodgett party.
'S-s-spy" says she real impetuous. "Eavesdrop-
'Eh?" says I, rubin my eyes, @Wha-a-at's the
tter?o
Have the kindness to explain your presence here"
S Miss WOdgett cold and stern; and beyond her
S not only Miss VIVIAN but Mrs Boomer Day and
dozen other women, old and young, all lookin' my
Why-er- guess l must have dozed off," says I.
,rry, Ladies, II didn't hear you out"
Humph!" snorts Miss Wodgett @Quite unlikely.
tell you what l beleve-you government
y"
"A which," gasps.
But, dear Honoria," puts in Vivian, athis is only
,fessor McCabe."
I don't care who he isl insists Miss Wodgett.
e has been hiding here this last haf-hour listen