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CHAPTER THREE
Wally was surprised to find the trip to town shorter than usual. His daughter conducted herself with great dignity, and never missed a thing.
An unbroken stream of conversation flowed from her lips, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of the people in the seats near by.
There was one difficult moment, when in hurrying for their seats, Mrs.
Page spied them out.
"For goodness sake, Wally, where are you going?"
"Taking Isabelle to town."
"Without a nurse?"
"I have a governess, not a nurse," protested Isabelle, indignantly.
"Oh, excuse me," laughed Mrs. Page. "Where's Max?"
"Home in bed," replied Isabelle, before Wally had formed an excuse.
"I hear your infant introduced an Adam-and-Eve scene into her party,"
Mrs. Page continued.
Wally glanced anxiously at Isabelle.
"This is Tommy Page's mother," he explained.
"I know. He's a horrid boy," she answered, feelingly.
Mrs. Page retired after this, and Wally undertook to argue with his daughter about unbecoming frankness.
"It's _true_," she protested.
"You don't have to tell everything you know."
"Don't you have to tell the truth?"
"Not when it hurts people's feelings."
She thought that over, and he wondered what she would make of it. The little monkey seemed to remember every word that was said to her.
"Let's have a punkin coach taxi," she said when they arrived in town.
"What kind is that?"
"All yellow, like the Cinderella one."
"They don't have them at this station."
"Make them get us one," urged the young arrogant.
He laughed and they went out into the street and waited until a yellow taxi came. As they took their seats in the coach, Isabelle gazed at her father speculatively.
"I am Cinderella, an' you've got to be the Fairy G.o.d-mother, I s'pose, but you don't look like her."
"Couldn't I be the Prince?" inquired Wally.
"No. Besides, he didn't ride in the coach," she corrected him, scornfully.
They stopped at a drug shop to get a list of agencies, picked at random from the telephone book. The first one was very depressing. There were several governesses, but Isabelle would have none of them, and Wally did not blame her. The second agency offered to summon a dozen candidates if he would come back in two hours. He agreed to that, and made the same arrangement with the third place.
"Now, we've got two hours to kill. What do you want to do?" he inquired.
"I want to go on top the 'bus."
"It's too hot."
"Well, that's what I want to do."
Wally sighed.
"All right, come along," he said, aware of what her determination usually accomplished.
He thought of Max, and felt himself absolutely martyred. This was her job. She was a slacker to put it off on him. In his irritation he glanced down at the cause of it, and found her looking at him.
"Wally, does the hot make you sick?"
"Why?"
"We could go to the Zoo in a taxi."
"Thank you, I should prefer that."
"All right"--cheerfully.
"You're a good old thing!" he remarked, as he called a second coach.
They inspected the animals, and endured the awful smells thereof, with great satisfaction on the part of Isabelle and much self-restraint on the part of her parent.
"Couldn't we have a gorilla out at The Beeches, Wally?" she inquired.
"Lord, no! What do you want of a beast like that?"
"I like them. They're so . . . different!" she said, hesitating over the adjective.
