Seated at the head of the table, he had Penelope on his right and Amanda on his left. At one point he described the incident caused by Hackpole's dog, also his decision to make a formal complaint.
Amanda said, "It's about time somebody blew the whistle on that lamebrain. If our mayor wasn't such an ass, he wouldn't let Hackpole get away with it." Penelope promptly launched a more genteel topic. "Everyone is tremendously pleased to hear, Mr. Qwilleran, that you might present this house to the city as a museum." "The city won't appreciate it," Amanda retorted. "They'll find it costs a few bucks to heat the place and pay the light bill, and they'll rezone the Circle and sell it for a rooming house." It seemed to Qwilleran that the conversation at the other end of the table was progressing with more finesse. While he labored to get Roger and Junior talking, he could hear Riker telling newspaper stories, Alexander extolling the social life in Washington, Melinda describing her week in Paris, and Sharon and Mildred laughing about the naive tourists in Mooseville.
"Chfff!" The Siamese were still under the table. Yum rum was looking for a shoelace to untie, and Koko was listening to the guests' voices with rapt concentration.
By the time the salmon croquettes were served, the host was finding it difficult to keep a dialogue alive. Junior seemed speechless with awe; no doubt he had never seen an epergne nor eaten terrine of pheasant. Roger was eating, but he seemed somewhere else. Penelope appeared preoccupied; at best her remarks were guarded, and she was not sipping her wine. As for the outspoken Amanda, she was becoming drowsier by the minute.
The waltz rhythms emanating from the foyer were soporific, Qwilleran thought, and he wished the musicians would try Mozart or Boccherini. Yet, Melinda's immediate tablemates were pleasantly animated.
In desperation he tried one subject after another. "Birch Tree's motorbike has a stereo cassette player, cruise control, and an intercom. I prefer pedaling an old-fashioned one-speed bicycle on Ittibittiwassee Road-smooth pavement, sparse traffic, and that eerie Buckshot Mine… You know a lot about mining history, Roger. What were the other nine mines?" Roger blinked his eyes and said listlessly, "Well… there was the Goodwinter… and the Big B… and the Dimsdale." "And the Moosejaw," his wife called out from her place farther down the table.
"The Moosejaw… and the Black Creek. How many is that?" "That's only six, dear." "Well… there was the Honey Hill and… Did I mention Old Glory?" "Don't forget Smith's Folly, dear." "Smith's Folly. There, that's it!" Roger concluded with relief.
Qwilleran had been counting on his fingers. "Including the Buckshot, that's only nine." "He forgot the Three Pines," Sharonsaid. "That's where they had the big cave-in a few years ago. Even the Daily Fluxion wrote it up." "Chfff!" There was another sneeze under the table.
The lamb bcheronne was served, and Penelope asked, "Are you doing any writing, Mr. Qwilleran?" "Only letters. I get a tremendous amount of mail." "I understand you answer each letter personally in a most gracious way. That's really very charming of you." Qwilleran could hear a familiar yukking sound under the table and hoped Koko was only expressing an opinion of the conversation and not throwing up on Penelope's shoe. He could also hear Mildred, far down the table, telling Alexander about her talented art student who had left town without explanation and virtually disappeared.
"A great pity," she said, "because she came from a poor family, and she could have gone to college on a scholarship and achieved some kind of success. " Alexander said with authority, "Great numbers of young women escape their humdrum existence in small towns every year, and they are assimilated into urban life, sometimes with — ah — great success. Many women professionals in New York and Washington were refugees, so to speak, from rural areas; We lose this talent because we fail to provide encouragement and opportunities and rewards." "Chfff!" "It's too bad," Mildred said, "that we don't do as much for artists as we do for farmers." Throughout the salad course Qwilleran persevered in promoting table talk, and he was relieved when the wild raspberry trifle was served. At that point he made an announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, absent from this table is an important member of our household who wears many hats — those of resident manager, curator of the collection, regisitrar, and official appraiser. And no one has a better right to wear the hat of a master chef. We are indebted to Iris Cobb for preparing this dinner tonight. I would like to ask her to join us at.
the table for dessert." There were murmurs of approval as he went to the kitchen and returned with the flustered housekeeper, and there was applause when he pulled up a chair and seated Mrs. Cobb between himself and Penelope. The attorney merely stiffened her spine.
When coffee and liqueurs were served in the drawing room, Qwilleran's somnolent tablemates began to revive. A few gathered in a chatty group around the life-size portrait of a young woman with a wasp waist and bustle, circa 1880. "She was a dance-hall girl before he married her." Amanda said. "Look at that bawdy twinkle in her eye." "Let's hear some stories, Roger," Junior urged. "Tell us about the K Saloon." "Tell the one about Harry," Sharon suggested. Roger had snapped out of his malaise. "Do you think I should?" "Why not?" "Go ahead!" "Well, it was like this-and it's true… One of the regular customers at the K Saloon was a miner named Harry, and eventually he drank himself to death. He was laid out at the furniture store, which was also the undertaking parlor, and his buddies decided he should have one last night at his favorite watering hole. So they smuggled him out of the store and put him on a sledge — it was the dead of winter — and off they went to the K Saloon. They propped Harry up at the bar, and all the patrons paid their respects and drowned their grief. Finally, at three in the morning, Harry's friends put him on the sled again and whipped up the horses. They were singing and feeling no pain, so they didn't notice the corpse sliding off the tail of the icy sledge. When they got back to the furniture store-no Harry! They spent the rest of the night looking for him, but the snow was drifting and they didn't find Harry until spring." There were gasps and groans and giggles, and Qwilleran said, "They were a bunch of necrophiliacs — that is, if the story is really true. I suspect it's apocryphal." Penelope gave a small cough and said in a firm voice, "This has been a delightful evening, and I regret we must say good night." Alexander said, "I emplane for Washington at an early hour tomorrow." Amanda nudged Riker and said in a stage whisper, "They can't run the country without him." The Mooseville group also departed. Riker drove Amanda home. Mrs. Cobb went upstairs to collapse. Qwilleran and Melinda had a drink in the kitchen with the butler, the footmen, and the string trio, praising them for their performances.
Then, when everyone had left, host and hostess kicked off their shoes in the library and indulged in postprandial gossip.
Melinda said, "Did you notice Penelope's reaction when you brought the cook to the table? She considered it the major faux pas of the twentieth century." "She didn't take a drink all evening. I think she wanted champagne, but her brother vetoed it." "Alex doesn't like her to drink; she talks too freely. How did you like her perfume, lover? It's something she asked me to bring from Paris." "Potent, to say the least," Qwilleran said. "She was sitting on my right, you know, and I lost my sense of smell. By the time the fish was served, I couldn't taste anything. Junior was sitting next to her, and he looked glassy eyed, as if he'd been smoking something. Amanda almost passed out, and Roger couldn't remember the names of the ten defunct mines.