Any letters for me, Jane
Ellen?" "Yash."

Oliver found them on the desk, looked them over, once, twice. A letter
from Peter Piper. Two advertisements. A letter with a French stamp.
Nothing from Nancy.

He went out on the porch again to read his letters, to the accompaniment
of Jane Ellen's untirable chant. "The Choolies are mad" buzzed in his
ears, "The Choolies, the Choolies are mad." For a moment he saw the
Choolies; they were all women like Mrs. Ellicott but they stood up in
front of him taller than the sky and one of them had hidden Nancy away
in her black silk pocket--put her somewhere, where he never would see
her again.

"Ollie, you look at me sternaly--_don't_ look at me so sternaly,
Ollie--the Choolies aren't mad at you--" said Jane Ellen anxiously. "Fy
do you look at me so sternaly?"

He grinned his best at her. "Sorry, Jane Ellen. But my girl's chucked me
and I've chucked my job--and consequently all _my_ choolies are mad--"

XXV

That night was distinguished by four uneasy meals in different
localities. The first was Oliver's and he ate it as if he were consuming
sawdust while the Crowes talked all around him in the suppressed voices
of people watching a military funeral pass to its muffled drums. Mrs.
Crowe was too wise to try and comfort him in public except by silence
and even Dickie was still too surprised at Oliver's peevish "Oh _get_
out, kid" when he tried to drag him into their usual evening boxing
match to do anything but confide despondently to his mother that he
doesn't see why Oliver has to act so _queer_ about any girl.

The second meal was infinitely gayer on the surface though a certain
kind of strainedness a little like the strainedness in the pauses of a
perfectly friendly football game when both sides are too evenly matched
to score ran through it. Still, whatever strainedness there was could
hardly have been Mrs. Severance's fault.

The impeccable Elizabeth showed no surprise at being told she could
have the day and needn't be back till breakfast tomorrow. She might have
thought that there seemed to be a good deal of rather perishable food
in the icebox to be wasted, if Mrs. Severance were going to have dinner
out. But Elizabeth had always been one of the rare people who took pride
in "knowing when they were suited" and the apartment on Riverside Drive
had suited her perfectly for four years. She was also a great deal too
clever to abstract any of those fragile viands to ta