Tish Plays the Game

We met Nettie Lynn on the street the other day, and she cut us all dead. Considering the sacrifices we had all made for her, especially our dear Tish, who cut a hole in her best rug on her account, this ungrateful conduct forces me to an explanation of certain events which have caused most unfair criticism. Whatever the results, it is never possible to impugn the motives behind Tish’s actions.

As for the janitor of Tish’s apartment house maintaining that the fruit jar buried in the floor was a portion of a still for manufacturing spirituous liquors, and making the statement that Tish’s famous blackberry cordial for medicinal use was fifty per cent alcohol—I consider this beneath comment. The recipe from which this cordial is made was originated by Tish’s Greataunt Priscilla, a painting of whom hangs, or rather did hang, over the mantel in Tish’s living room.

The first notice Aggie and I received that[Pg 10] Tish was embarked on one of her kindly crusades again was during a call from Charlie Sands. We had closed our cottage at Lake Penzance and Aggie was spending the winter with me. She had originally planned to go to Tish, but at the last moment Tish had changed her mind.

“You’d better go with Lizzie, Aggie,” she said. “I don’t always want to talk, and you do.”

As Aggie had lost her upper teeth during an unfortunate incident at the lake, which I shall relate further on, and as my house was near her dentist’s, she agreed without demur. To all seeming the indications were for a quiet winter, and save for an occasional stiffness in the arms, which Tish laid to neuritis, she seemed about as usual.

In October, however, Aggie and I received a visit from her nephew, and after we had given him some of the cordial and a plate of Aggie’s nut wafers he said, “Well, revered and sainted aunts, what is the old girl up to now?”

We are not his aunts, but he so designates us. I regret to say that by “the old girl” he referred to his Aunt Letitia.

“Since the war,” I said with dignity, “your Aunt Letitia has greatly changed, Charlie. We have both noticed it. The great drama is over, and she is now content to live on her memories.”

I regret to say that he here exclaimed, “Like——she[Pg 11] is! I’ll bet you a dollar and a quarter she’s up to something right now.”

Aggie gave a little moan.

“You have no basis for such a statement,” I said sternly. But he only took another wafer and more of our cordial. He was preventing a cold.

“All right,” he said. “But I’ve had considerable experience, and she’s too quiet. Besides, she asked me the other day if doubtful methods were justifiable to attain a righteous end!”

“What did you tell her?” Aggie inquired anxiously.

“I said they were not; but she didn’t seem to believe me. Now mark my words: After every spell of quiet she has she goes out and gets in the papers. So don’t say I haven’t warned you.”

But he had no real basis for his unjust suspicions, and after eating all the nut wafers in the house he went away.