Young Angus just set there with his mouth open.
"'So you have,' says old Angus, and he goes on as crisp as a bunch of
celery: 'I told you I felt ingenious. I've kept this money in the family
by the simple device of taking the job. I've engaged two other painters
and decorators besides myself, a carpenter, an electrician, a glazier,
and a few proletariats of minor talent for clearing away the wreckage. I
shall be on the job at eight. The loafers won't start at seven, as I
used to. Don't think I'd see any son of mine robbed before my very eyes.
My new overalls are laid out and my valet has instructions to get me
into them at seven, though he persists in believing I'm to attend a
fancy-dress ball at some strangely fashionable hour. So I bid you all
good evening.'
"Well, I guess that was the first time Ellabelle had really let go of
herself since she was four years old or thereabouts. Talk about the
empress of stormy emotion! For ten minutes the room sounded like a
torture chamber of the dark Middle Ages. But the doctor reached there at
last in a swift car, and him and the two maids managed to get her laid
out all comfortable and moaning, though still with outbreaks about every
twenty minutes that I could hear clear over on my side of the house.
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