For a second Warble could see only Petticoat's pink cheeks and perfected
eyebrows. Then she shook off the spell and keyed up.
"We're going to have an obstacle race," she announced, "all over the
house. You must follow me, wherever I go. I shall lead you a dance! And
then I shall come last to the lake in the front hall, and whoever is
nearest me there, will be rewarded."
Yet even as she spoke, she overheard Trymie whispering to Iva Payne, "Yes,
I believe that the new art era into which we are now slipping, will
worship beauty for itself alone, and that art, sublimated by--"
She turned away, sick at heart.
Why bother, her tortured soul cried out. Yet the irrepressible impulse of
reform egged her on and it was a perfectly good egg.
She flew past Petticoat, only pausing to shout, "Like it all, my tramp?
Yes, it _is_ an expensive party."
Then she led her followers a mad race. Sliding down banisters, squeezing
into dumb waiters; crawling under beds and out the other side; jumping in
and out again of bathtubs full of perfumed water. Out of windows, in at
scuttles. Through booby-traps of half-open doors, on the lintel of which
were perched pans full of live crabs or little boxes of mice.
On rushed the horde, Mrs. Givens panting from over exertion, Goldie
Leathersham limping because of a crab hanging to his great toe.
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