So he felt relieved
when each of his neighbors in turn, after a polite inquiry about his
health, turned to seek livelier responses in other directions. For the
talk went on with the eating, incessantly. It rose over the throbbing
of the orchestra and the clatter and clinking of silver and china and
glass, and there was a mighty babble.
"Yes, sir! Started without a dollar." ... "Yellow flounces on the
overskirt--" ... "I says, 'Wilkie, your department's got to go bigger
this year,' I says." ... "Fifteen per cent. turnover in thirty-one
weeks." ... "One of the biggest men in the biggest--" ... "The wife
says she'll have to let out my pants if my appetite--" ... "Say, did
you see that statue of a Turk in the hall? One of the finest things
I ever--" ... "Not a dollar, not a nickel, not one red cent do you
get out o' me,' I says, and so he ups and--" ... "Yes, the baby makes
four, they've lost now." ... "Well, they got their raise, and they
went in big." ... "Yes, sir! Not a dollar to his name, and look at
what--" ... "You wait! The population of this town's goin' to hit the
million mark before she stops." ... "Well, if you can show me a bigger
deal than--"
And through the interstices of this clamoring Bibbs could hear the
continual booming of his father's heavy voice, and once he caught the
sentence, "Yes, young lady, that's just what did it for me, and that's
just what'll do it for my boys--they got to make two blades o' grass
grow where one grew before!" It was his familiar flourish, an old
story to Bibbs, and now jovially declaimed for the edification of Mary
Vertrees.
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