so young, so pretty, so charming! But when it came to a matter of shrewd bargaining, you couldn’t beat her. Her squeezing of the other fellow’s price was clever–she could have wrung juice from a raw quince. Her big husband was entirely dominated by his tall, slender wife; he admired her methods enormously.
Sometimes he found it embarrassing to look into the face of the “squeezed.” While she was crumbling down my rent, he turned his back, looking out of the window, but I saw that his big ears were red and that they twitched.
It was the Doll’s Flat she bargained for, which seemed ridiculous seeing that he was so large, she so tall, and the Doll’s Flat so little. “Won’t it be rather squeezy?” I suggested.
“My husband is used to ship cabins. For myself I like economy.”
She was an extremely neat, orderly person, kept the Doll’s Flat like a Doll’s Flat-no bottles, no laundry, no garbage troubles, as one had with so many tenants. She made the place attractive.
She entertained a bit and told me all the nice things people said about her flat.
“If only I had ‘such and such a rug’ or ‘such and such a curtain’ it would be perfect!” and she wheedled till I got it for her. But these added charms to make her flat perfect always came out of my pocket, never out of hers.
I had a white cat with three snowball kittens who had eyes like forget-me-nots. When the tall, slim wife was entertaining, she borrowed my “cat family,” tied blue ribbons round their necks. Cuddled on a cushion in a basket they amused and delighted her guests–inexpensive entertainment. Flowers were always to be had out of my garden for the picking.
“If only toasted buns grew on the trees!” She liked toasted buns for her tea parties–the day-before’s were half price and toasted better. . . . I heard her on my ‘phone.
“Not deliver five cents’ worth! Why should I buy more when I don’t require them?” Down slammed the receiver and she turned to me.
“They do not deserve one’s custom! I shall have to walk to town: it is not worth paying a twelve-cent carfare to fetch five cents’ worth of stale buns!”
I swore at the beginning of each month I would buy nothing new for her, but before the month was out I always had, and wanted to kick myself for a weak fool. I liked her in spite of her meanness.
She was proud of her husband’s looks; he wore his navy lieutenant’s clothes smartly.
“Ralph, you need a new uniform.”–He ordered it. “How much is the tailor charging? . . . Ridiculous!”
“He is the best tailor in town, my dear.”
“Leave him to me.”
The next day she came home from town. “I’ve cut that tailor’s price in half!”
“What a clever wife!” But the lieutenant went red. He took advantage of her bargaining but he shivered at her boasting in front of me about it.
She did hate to pay a doctor. She had been a nurse before she married; she knew most of the doctors in town. It was wonderful how she could nurse along an ailment till someone in the house fell sick, then she just “happened to be coming in the gate” as the doctor went out. He would stop for a word with the pretty thing.
“How are you?”
Out came tongue and all her saved-up ailments. She ran down to the druggist’s to fill the prescription, to shop a little. Butcher, grocer always added a bit of suet, or a bone, or maybe she spotted a cracked egg, had it thrown in with her dozen. They loved doing it for her, everybody fell before her wheedle.
“I am going to stay with you forever,” she had said as an inducement to make me lower the rent and buy this or that for her flat. Then, “The very smartest apartment block in town–Ralph always fancied it, but it was too expensive for us. But-only one room, a bachelor suite-the man is sub-letting at half its usual price, furniture thrown in. He will be away one year. Wonderful for us! Such a bargain, isn’t it my dear?”
“One room!”
“But, the block is so smart: such a bargain!”
They went to their bargain room. A professor and his wife moved into my Doll’s Flat. They were as lavishly openhanded as the others had been stingy. The professor was writing a book. He had a talkative wife whom he adored, but though he loved her tremendously, he could not get on with his book because of her chattering. He just picked her up, opened my door, popped her in.
“There! chatter, dear, all you like.” He turned the key on his peace–what about mine? I pulled the dust-sheet over my canvas. Landlady’s sighs are heavy–is it not enough to give shelter, warmth, furniture? Must a landlady give herself too?
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