Little Miss Grouch Part 10

"Mrs. Denyse?"

"She seems a fearfully queer person, and quite excited about you. There was something about you and a necktie, and--and Mr. Van Dam, and then I escaped."

"Oh! The necktie. Why, yes, I suppose I am a sort of haberdasher, come to think of it."

"I'm glad you're not ashamed of your business if you are of your name.

You told her it was Smith."

"Did I? I don't remember that I did, exactly. Even so, what would be the use of wasting a really good name on her? She wouldn't appreciate it."

"Mr. De Dalesquinc--"

"Daddleskink," corrected the Tyro firmly.

"Very well," she sighed. "Daddleskink, then. Wasn't that Dr. Alderson, the historian, that you were walking with yesterday?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"Only by correspondence. He did some research work on my house."

"_Your_ house. Do you inhabit a prehistoric ruin, that Alderson should take an interest in it?"

"I call it mine. It isn't really--yet. It doesn't belong to anybody."

"Then why not just go and grab it? Squatter sovereignty, I believe they call the process."

"I thought it was called jumping a claim. Somebody has a claim on it.

But that doesn't count. I always get what I want."

"Without trying?"

"Yes," she purred.

"Unfortunate maiden!"

"What?"

"I said 'unfortunate maiden.' Life must be fearfully dull for you."

"It isn't dull at all. It's delightful!"

"As witness day before yesterday. Were you getting what you wanted then?"

"I wanted a good cry, and I got it. And I don't want to talk about it.

If you're going to be stupid--"

"Tell me about the prehistoric ruin," he implored hastily.

"It isn't a ruin at all. It's the cunningest, quaintest, homiest little old house in all New York."

"I'm sorry," he said in the tone of one who reluctantly thwarts another's project.

"What are you sorry about?" She drew down the slanted brows with a delicious effect of surprise.

"I'm sorry; but you can't have that house."

"Why not?"

"It's mine."

"Now, you take any other house in New York that you want," she cajoled.

"Fifth Avenue is still nice. Any one can live on Fifth Avenue, though.

But to have a real house on Battery Place--that's different."

"My idea exactly."

She sat bolt upright. "You aren't serious. You don't mean the mosaic-front house with the little pillars?"

"The oldest house left on Battery Place. That's it."

"And you claim it's yours?"

"Practically. I don't exactly own it--"

"Then you never will. I've wished it in," she announced with the calmness of finality.

"Think how good for you it would be not to get something you wanted. The tonic effect of a life-size disappointment--"

"No," she said, shaking her head violently, "it wouldn't be good for me at all. I should cry and become a red-nosed mess again.

_I'm--going--to--have--that--house._ Why, Mr. Dad--Mr. Smi--Mr. Man,"

she cried, with a gesture of desperation, "I've owned that house in my mind for five years."

"Five years! I've owned it for five generations."

"Are you claiming that it's your family place?"

"It is. Is it yours? Are you my long-lost cousin, by any chance? Welcome to my arms--coat of arms, I mean."

"What would that be?" she inquired mischievously, "a collar-b.u.t.ton, fessed--"

"Bending above a tearful maiden rampant. The legend, 'Stand on your own feet; if you don't, somebody else will.'"

"I don't _think_ I can boast any cousin named Daddleskink," she observed. "Anyway, we're not New Yorkers. We came from the West."

"Where the money is made," he commented.

"To the East where it is spent," she concluded.

"Why spend it buying other people's houses?"