“Pansy and Violet!” says I.  “Listens well.”

“Perhaps their names are hardly appropriate; but they are nice, sensible, rather attractive young women, both of them,” insists Merry.

“Then why not?” says I.  “What’s the matter with the Hymen proposition?”

“Oh, it’s out of the question,” protests J. Meredith, blushin’ deep.  “Really I—­I’ve never thought of marrying anyone.  Why, how could I?  And besides I shouldn’t know how to go about it,—­proposing, and all that.  Oh, I couldn’t!  You—­you can’t understand.  I’m such a duffer at most things.”

There’s no fake about him bein’ modest.  You could tell that by the way he colored up, even talkin’ to me.  Odd sort of a gink he was, with a lot of queer streaks in him that didn’t show on the outside.  It was more or less entertainin’, followin’ up the plot of the piece; but all of a sudden Merry gets over his confidential spasm and shuts up like a clam.

“Almost time to dress for dinner,” says he.  “We’d best be going in.”

And of course my appearin’ in the banquet uniform don’t give him any serious jolt.

“Well, well, Torchy!” says he, as I strolls into the parlor about six-thirty, tryin’ to forget the points of my dress collar.  “How splendid you look!”

“I had some battle with the tie,” says I.  “Ain’t the bow lopsided?”

“A mere trifle,” says he.  “Allow me.  There!  Really, I’m quite proud of you.  Aunty’ll be pleased too; for, while she dresses very plainly herself, she likes this sort of thing.  You’ll see.”

I didn’t notice any wild enthusiasm on Aunty’s part, though, when she shows up.  A lean, wiry old girl, Aunty is, with her white hair bobbed up careless and a big shell comb stickin’ up bristly, like a picket fence, on top.  There’s nothin’ soft about her chin, or the square-cut mouth, and after she’d give me one glance out of them shrewd, squinty eyes I felt like she’d taken my number,—­pedigree, past performances, and cost mark complete.

“Howdo, young man?” says she, and with out wastin’ any more breath on me she pikes out to the front door to scout down the drive for the other guests.

They arrives on the tick of six-forty-five, and inside of three minutes Aunty has shooed us into the dinin’ room.  And, say, the first good look I had at Pansy and Violet I nearly passed away.  “Rather large,” Merry had described ’em.  Yes, and then some!  They wa’n’t just ordinary fat women; they was a pair of whales,—­big all over, tall and wide and hefty.  They had their weight pretty well placed at that; not lumpy or bulgy, you know, but with them expanses of shoulder, and their big, heavy faces—­well, the picture of slim, narrow-chested Merry Stidler sittin’ wedged in between the two, like the ham in a lunch counter sandwich, was most too much for me.  I swallows a drink of water and chokes over it.

I expect Merry caught on too.  I’d never seen him so fussed before.  He’s makin’ a brave stab at bein’ chatty; but I can tell he’s doin’ it all on his nerve.  He glances first to the right, and then turns quick to the left; but on both sides he’s hemmed in by them two human mountains.