"Hetty, she just stands there, just as easy, and hollers back that Cronney has bought a gramophone and how they sets by it day and night listening, and how it's son and daughter to 'em. Then she calls up to Mabel Tuttle, 'I should think you'd be afraid of meddlin' with them ottermobiles, _your_ time of life.'" Mr. Tinneray choked over his own rendition of this audacity, but his wife sniffed hopelessly. "_They_ ain't got no gramophone--_her_, with that face and hat?--Cronney don't make nothing; they two could _live_ on what that Blue Silk Quilt feeds that stinkin' parrot." But Mr. Tinneray chuckled again, he seemed to be possessed with the humor of some delightful secret. Looking carefully around him and seeing every one absorbed in other things he leaned closer to his wife. "She's liable to lose that bird," he whispered. "Them young fellers with the canes--they're full of their devilment--well, they wanted I shouldn't say nothing and I ain't sayin' nothing--only--" Fat Mr. Tinneray, pale eyes rolling in merriment, pointed to the camp-stool where once the parrot's cage had rested and where now no parrot-cage was to be seen. "As fur as I can see," he nudged his wife again, "that bird's liable to get left ashore." For a moment Mrs. Tinneray received this news stolidly, then a look of comprehension flashed over her face. "What you talkin' about, Henry?" she demanded. "Say, ain't you never got grown up? Where's Manda Bean?" Having located Mrs. Bean, the two ladies indulged in a rapid whispered conversation. Upon certain revelations made by Mrs. Bean, Mrs. Tinneray turned and laid commands upon her husband. "Look here," she said, "that what you told me is true--them young fellers--" she fixed Mr. Tinneray with blue-glassed significant eyes, adding _sotto voce_, "_You keep Mabel Tuttle busy_." Fat Mr. Tinneray, chuckling anew, withdrew to the after-rail where the azure lady still stood, chained as it were in a sort of stupor induced by the incisive thrusts of the forlorn little woman on the wharf. He joined in the conversation. "So yer got a gramophone, hey," he called down kindly--"Say, that's nice, ain't it?--that's company fer you and Cronney." He appealed to Mrs. Tuttle in her supposed part of interested relative. "Keeps 'em from gettin' lonesome and all," he explained. That lady looking a pointed unbelief, could not, with the other excursionists watching, but follow his lead. "Why--er--ye-ess, that's rill nice," she agreed, with all the patronage of the wealthy relative. Little Mrs. Cronney's eyes glittered. The steamboat hands had begun lifting the hawsers from the wharf piles and her time was short. She was not going to be pitied by the opulent persons on the excursion. Getting as it were into her stride, she took a bolder line of imagery.