I didn't know what he meant then; I do now.

The marrying was done about eight o'clock and done with all the
trimmings. All hands manned the yards in the best parlor, and Peter and
Belle was hitched. Then they went away in a swell turnout--not like the
derelict hacks we'd seen stranded by the Cashmere depot--and Jonadab
pretty nigh took the driver's larboard ear off with a shoe Phil gave him
to heave after 'em.

After the wedding the folks was sitting under the palms and bushes that
was growing in tubs all over the house, and the stewards--there was
enough of 'em to man a four-master--was carting 'round punch and frozen
victuals. Everybody was togged up till Jonadab and me, in our new
cutaways, felt like a couple of moulting blackbirds at a blue-jay
camp-meeting. Ebenezer was so busy, flying 'round like a pullet with
its head off, that he'd hardly spoke to us sence we landed, but Phil
scarcely ever left us, so we wa'n't lonesome. Pretty soon he comes back
from a beat into the next room, and he says:

"There's a lady here that's just dying to know you gentlemen. Her name's
Granby. Tell her all about the Cape; she'll like it. And, by the way,
my dear feller," he whispers to Jonadab "if you want to please
her--er--mightily, congratulate her upon her boy's success in the
laundry business. You understand," he says, winking; "only son and
self-made man, don't you know."

Mrs. Granby was roosting all by herself on a sofy in the parlor. She was
fleshy, but terrible stiff and proud, and when she moved the diamonds on
her shook till her head and neck looked like one of them "set pieces" at