"Nice Jeff!" she whispered.
"Oh, my dear!" he implored. He shook his head in a wistful way that
caught her heart, and dutifully went back to informing Mr. Boltwood of
the true state of the markets.
"Talk to Claire too!" she demanded. She stopped, stared. From outside
she heard a nervous pit-pit-pit, a blurred dialogue between Mr. James
Barmberry and another man. Into the room rambled Milt Daggett, dusty of
unpressed blue suit, tired of eyes, and not too well shaved of chin,
grumbling, "Thought I'd never catch up with you, Claire---- Why----"
"Oh! Oh, Milt--Mr. Daggett---- Oh, Jeff, this is our good friend Milt
Daggett, who has helped us along the road."
Jeff's lucid rimless spectacles stared at Milt's wind-reddened eyes; his
jaunty patch-pocket outing clothes sniffed at Milt's sweater; his even
voice followed Milt's grunt of surprise with a curt "Ah. Mr. Daggett."
"Pleased meet you," faltered Milt.
Jeff nodded, turned his shoulder on Milt, and went on, "The fact is, Mr.
Boltwood, the whole metal market----"
Milt was looking from one to another. Claire was now over her first
shocked comparison of candied fruits with motor grease. She rose, moved
toward Milt, murmuring, "Have you had dinner?"
The door opened again. A pink-haired, red-faced man in a preposterous
green belted suit lunged in, swept his broad felt hat in greeting, and
boomed like a cheap actor: "Friends of my friend Milt, we about to dine salute you. Let me
introduce myself as Westlake Parrott, better known to the vulgar as
Pinky Parrott, gentleman adventurer, born in the conjunction of Mars and
Venus, with Saturn ascendant."
Jeff had ignored Milt. But at this absurd second intrusion on his
decidedly private dinner-party he flipped to the center of the room and
said "I beg your pardon!" in such a head-office manner that the
pink-locked Mystery halted in his bombast. Claire felt wabbly. She had
no theories as to where Milt had acquired a private jester, nor as to
what was about to happen to Milt--and possibly to her incautious self.