sure-fire skookum creative genius holds forth.

It's a giddy bunch of lady gushers that's got together there too, and
the soulful chatter is bein' put over so fast it sounds like
intermission at a cabaret show. I'm introduced proper to Brooks boy
and Wifey; but I'd picked 'em both out at first glimpse. No mistakin'
him. He's got on the kind of costume that goes with the fishnet and
brass tea machine,--flowin' tie, velvet coat, baggy trousers, and all,
even to the Vandyke beard. It's kind of a pale, mud-colored set of
face alfalfa; but, then, Brooks boy is sort of that kind himself--that
is, all but his eyes. They're a wide-set, dreamy, baby-blue pair of
lamps, that beams mild and good-natured on everyone.

But Mrs. Brooks Bladen is got up even more arty than Hubby. Maybe it
wa'n't sugar sackin' or furniture burlap, but that's what the stuff
looked like. It's gathered jaunty just under her armpits and hangs in
long folds to the floor, with a thick rope of yellow silk knotted
careless at one side with the tassels danglin' below her knee, while
around her head is a band of tinsel decoration that might have been
pinched off from a Christmas tree. She's a tall, willowy young woman,
who waves her bare arms around vivacious when she talks and has lots of
sparkle to her eyes.

"You dear child!" is her greetin' to Marjorie. "So sweet of you to
attempt all those dreadful stairs! No, don't try to talk yet. We
understand, don't we, Brooks? Nice you're not sensitive about it, too."

I caught the glare Marjorie shoots over, and for a minute I figured how
the picture buyin' deal had been queered at the start; but the next
thing I knew Brooks boy is holdin' Marjorie's hand and beamin' gentle