Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/781

Rh The Furniture-polisher, politely: "Sure."

''He goes out. Mr. Tarrant sniffs scornfully: "You'll never see him again, Bess. Well, it's just like that song Mrs. Ritch sings—we can't seem to get the place and the time and the loved one all together, as you might say! Now by the time we get'' the furniture—"

Mrs. Tarrant, wisely oblivious of this carping mood: "Oh, Dick, I'll tell you what we can do. We can hang the pictures, anyway."

Mr. Tarrant, approvingly: "That's not a bad idea, Bess, not at all. I'll get the ladder-chair." He starts out of the room.

Mrs. Tarrant: "You can't—it hasn't come. Send down for the janitor's ladder."

Mr. Tarrant leaves the room, and while his wife brings in framed pictures of assorted shapes and sizes from the hall to the drawing-room his voice is heard: "Yes, this is Mr. Tarrant—fourth floor. Yes No; just send it up. We don't need him—only the ladder{{...|4} That's very kind, but it won't be necessary Yes; one of you boys Oh yes, I'll be careful Oh, certainly; I know all about ladders Lord! yes, like a mother! No, not Parrot—Tarrant."

''In a few minutes he enters the drawing-room with an uncertain-looking step-ladder. Mrs. Tarrant meanwhile has leaned fifteen to twenty pictures in two piles against the base-board; then dissatisfied with this arrangement, she separates them, making a kind of dado around the two sides of the room, the faces turned in. Standing off to view the effect, she is struck with the impracticability of this disposal of them, and makes a second tour of the room, bent double for the purpose of reversing them. Mr. Tarrant, who has been watching her from the door, with a strained patience, here interposes:'' "If you're going around many more times, Bess, I might as well take the ladder back."

Mrs. Tarrant, panting: "Oh, are you there?"

Mr. Tarrant: "Yes. It's a good enough game, if you like it, but too hard on the back for me. Now hand 'em up, and say when—where, I mean."

''She hands him a coffee-colored photograph of the Mona Lisa, heavily framed in oak. He regards it disgustedly:'' "That! You know, Elizabeth, of all the frauds that were ever perpetrated, that is, that really is, the very worst!"

Mrs. Tarrant: "Nonsense!"

Mr. Tarrant: "Look me in the eye and say you like it!"

Mrs. Tarrant: "I do."

Mr. Tarrant: "Elizabeth!"

Mrs. Tarrant: "I—I think I do, Dick—I am almost sure I do!"

Mr. Tarrant: "Oh, well, if you have no more regard than that for the future life, hand her up." ''A pause, during which he slips the end of a coil of wire, produced from his pocket, through one of the screw-holes of the picture, and pressing a hook, from the other pocket, to the moulding, loops the wire over it. The picture dangles unsteadily as he inquires:'' "There; about there, I should say?"

Mrs. Tarrant: "Oh dear, no—that's too high. In a picture like that the eyes ought to be on a level with one's own eyes. Drop it a little."

Mr. Tarrant, turning toward her, still supporting the free end of the wire: "One's eyes? Whose eyes? Yours or mine?"

Mrs. Tarrant: "Oh, anybody's, stupid!"

Mr. Tarrant: "I see. Edward Ritch's, for example. This would just about suit him—sitting down."

Mrs. Tarrant: "Dick! Please don't argue! I read that was the way to do it somewhere, but of course if you make fun of it—"

Mr. Tarrant: "I'm not making fun at all. I'm only being practical. We might match 'em up to various people's eyes, and then everybody would be pleased once, anyhow."

Mrs. Tarrant: "Dick, if you don't begin, we sha'n't get a thing done!"

Mr. Tarrant, snapping off the wire with scissors from his vest pocket: "Well, here goes. I'll fasten it about here. That all right?"

Mrs. Tarrant, standing directly behind him to get a full-face view: "I can't see a thing: you cover it all up."

Mr. Tarrant, stepping down (at which the picture slips a few inches), jumping hastily back, while the ladder sways and