g carriage.

"And to--" but the driver lashed his horses, and I had to give up.

I went back to Mary in her best dress.

"Finished, is it?" she said, sniffing with indignation. "I suppose the
agent thought we were flies, and could move in on the ceiling--as
that's the only thing I can see about the house that's finished!"

"Wait until Mr. Jardine sees the agent!" I said, ominously. "Then
something else will be finished, besides the ceiling."

"I hope he'll kill him!" said Mary, pleasantly.

It was a real pleasure to witness the dismay in Mr. Close's face when
Aubrey returned, bringing him, mentally, by the scruff of the neck. I
have seen terriers yanked back to look at things they have "worried" in
much the same manner that Mr. Close was fetched to Peach Orchard.

"Just look, Mr. Close, if you please," I said, ominously polite. "You
telephoned me yesterday and said you had been here personally and seen
with your own eyes that everything was finished and the house in
perfect readiness for us to move in."

Mr. Close refused to meet my accusing eye. He turned green.

There are more ways than one of calling a man a liar. And some are
safer than others.

"Did you really have the smoke test put through the plumbing as you
said you did?" I asked.

Mr. Close eagerly produced the bill.

Plumber's bills are conclusive evidence.

"Did you have the range cleaned and the water-back examined?" demanded
Aubrey.

Mr. Close swore that he did. Aubrey led him captive around the house
and showed him the confusion thereof, Mary grimly following. I think
Close preferred Aubrey to me, and me or anybody to Mary, for Mary's
very spectacles were bristling with anger. She could see herself, in
her best dress, having to clean up that mess so that the furniture
could be moved in.

Then Aubrey's men began to arrive. The man with the chandeliers. The
carpenters to lay the floors. The man from the water office. My negro
cleaning woman and the grocer's boy. Fortunately, the cleaning woman
had brought a broom, a mop, and a bucket.

As there were no fires, Aubrey and Mr. Close made one in the furnace;
Mary and the grocer's boy--or rather the grocer's boy under Mary's
direction--built one in the range, while I set the woman to sweeping
one floor for the carpenters to begin on.

Suddenly I heard hurried feet running up the cellar stairs. The water
man had turned the water on from the street, and it was gaily pouring
int