Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/780

724 ''Mr. Tarrant takes the hammer, confronts the boxes, and scowls. Then tucking the hammer under his arm, he lifts down the Wagner and the Victory and places them with an audible thud on the table, his wife following with the tall vase. Mounting the kitchen chair, he pries off the top of the upper box and struggles to remove the contents.''

Mrs. Tarrant, excitedly: "What is it, Dick? What can it be? I don't remember anything like that. Why, it's one big thing! How beautifully they packed it, didn't they?"

''Mr. Tarrant pauses suddenly in the unwrapping process and directs a baleful glare at the object of his labors. He shakes the shapeless bundle distrustfully once or twice, tears a hole in one side of the paper and exposes a large pink rose-bud. He bursts out angrily:'' "Oh! this is too much! This is insult to injury! And I came up early for the priceless pleasure of unveiling this! Do you mean to say that those lunatics have packed this horror in a box all by itself, when I specially told them just to lay it on the top somewhere and hurry it along?"

Mrs. Tarrant: "Why, it's your cousin Marie's Dresden vase! Isn't that funny? But you oughtn't to have told them that, Dick—it was a very expensive present, and she may come East any day."

Mr. Tarrant, brandishing the large sky-blue jug adorned with corpulent cupids, garlands, and gilded handles: "I don't give a cent if it is or she does. My whole married life has been blighted by this thing—blighted. For two years I have exposed that object to chances enough to wreck a—a cannon; I have held doors open with it; I've pitched cigars into it; I've trained a puppy to stand on it—and not a hair of its head is injured! You never know your relatives' real character till you're married. To think I have a cousin capable of giving me a thing like that! See here, Bess, what do you bet I can't whack it at that Madonna broadside and never bruise either of 'em?" He brandishes the jug at arm's length, to his wife's visible horror.

Mrs. Tarrant: "Dick, Dick, be careful!"

Mr. Tarrant: "Oh, don't worry, my dear; they have charmed lives. A torpedo would slide off baffled from either one of 'em." He gets down from the chair on which he has been standing during this scene and pulls the top box from the pile.

''A pause follows, during which he aims paper wads at the Dresden vase, and his wife peers out of the window. Presently she turns to him with a determined cheerfulness:'' "Anyhow, Dick, it's a nice location. You know, if you could see a little, little bit farther, you could see the river."

Mr. Tarrant, pessimistically: "Yes. And if I could see a little farther still, I could see Spain; but I can't."

Mrs. Tarrant sighs.

''The bell rings. She opens the door and admits the Furniture-polisher—a short, stained young man in discolored overalls, with a number of small, dripping pails in one hand and a bundle of unclean rags in the other. He greets her:'' "Goot day, ma'am. I come to bolish."

Mrs. Tarrant, doubtfully: "To what?"

The Furniture-polisher: "To bolish. Yes. All done to-day. Sure. Do I come by this way?"

''He pushes into the drawing-room and deposits his pails on the floor, smiling placidly around him. Mr. Tarrant stares at him. Mrs. Tarrant gasps comprehendingly:'' "Dick, it's the furniture man! I made them swear to send him to-day to rub up all the furniture. I thought we'd be all settled, certainly, by now. And here he is."

The Furniture-polisher: "Sure, I come to bolish. Where do I begin?"

Mrs. Tarrant, mournfully: "You can't begin anywhere. I'm so sorry, but nothing has come yet. This is all there is."

The Furniture-polisher: "Then I do not bolish? No?"

Mr. Tarrant, with forced cheerfulness: "You might begin on these boxes. Or try some of the busts and statuary. Try the party with the tam—"

Mrs. Tarrant: "Richard!"

The Furniture-polisher: "We do not bolish marple. It does no goot. Well, I come again. Goot day, ma'am."

''He picks up the pails and retires. Mrs. Tarrant follows him sadly to the door, murmuring:'' "I'm so sorry. I meant to have it all done. When it does come, you'll come again, won't you, and attend to it?"