Don't seem to cheer him
up any, either, to have me ask him frivolous questions.
"Can you spot any movie shows or hot-dog wagons out there, Cap'n?" I
asks.
He just glares peevish and declines to answer.
"What you lookin' for, anyway?" I goes on.
"Nothing I care to discuss with you, I think," says he.
"Bing-g-g," says I. "Right on the wrist!"
And then all of a sudden Mrs. Mumford gets hipped with the idea that
Rupert is sort of bein' neglected. Well, trust her. She's been a
sunshine worker and a social uplifter all her life. And no sooner does
she get sympathizin' with Rupert than she starts plannin' ways of
chirkin' him up.
"The poor dear Captain!" she gurgles gushy. "He seems so lonely and
sad. Who knows what his past has been, how many dangers he has faced,
what ordeals he has been through? If someone could only get him to
talk about them, it might help."
"Why not tackle him, then?" says I. "Nobody could do it better than
you."
"Oh, really now!" protests Mrs. Mumford, duckin' her chin kittenish.
"I--I couldn't do it alone. Perhaps, though, if you young people
would--"
"Oh, we will; won't we, Torchy?" says Vee.
I nods. Inside of half an hour, too, we had towed Rupert into a corner
beside the widow and had him surrounded.
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