left the victim to writhe from then on to Christmas, trying
alternately to imagine what gift was impending and what would be an
appropriate counter-gift.

III

MISTRESS OF THE REVELS

In more ways than one Mrs. Budlong kept Carthage on the writhe.
Christmas was merely the climax of a ceaseless activity. All the
year round she was at work like a yeast alert in a soggy dough.

She was forever getting up things. She was one of those terrible
women who return calls on time or a little ahead. That made it
necessary for you to return hers earlier. If you didn't, she called
you up on the telephone and asked you why you hadn't. You had to
promise to come over at once or she'd talk to you till your ear was
welded to the telephone. Then if you broke your promise she called
you up about that. She got in from fifty-two to a hundred and four
calls a year, where one or two would have amply sufficed for all she
had to say.

It was due to her that Carthage had such a lively social
existence--for its size. Once, when she fell ill, the people felt
suddenly as passengers feel when a street car is suddenly braked back
on its haunches. All Carthage found itself wavering and poised on
tiptoe and clinging to straps; and then it sogged back on its heels
and waited till the car should resume progress. Mrs. Budlong was the
town's motorman--or "motorneer," as they say in Carthage.

Before she was out of bed, she had invitations abroad for a
convalescent tea, and everybody said, "Here we go again!"

If strangers visited Carthage, Mrs. Budlong counted them her clients
the moment they arrived. Of course, the merely commercial visitors
she left to the hackmen at the station, but friends or relatives of
prominent people could not escape Mrs. Budlong's well-meant
attentions. It was sometimes embarrassing when relatives
appeared--for everybody has Concealed Relatives that he is perfectly
willing to leave in concealment.

Mrs. Alex. (pronounced Ellick) Stubblebine never forgave Mrs. Budlong
for dragging into the limelight some obscure cousins of her husband's
who had drifted into Carthage to borrow money on their farm. Mrs.
Stubblebine was always bragging about her people, her own people that
is. Her husband's people, of course, were after all only
Stubblebines, while her maiden name was Dilatush; and the Dilatushes,
as everybody knew, were related by marriage to the Tatums.

But these were Stubblebines that came to town.