The worst of this house is that it really has no
back--it has various fronts, like the war. The spinster next door but
one has a parrot--a cynical, tired parrot, but still fond of the sound
of his own voice. The lady across the street is raising Pekinese
puppies, who apparently bitterly regret being born outside of Pekin. She
puts them in baskets on the roof in the sun and lets them cry it out, in
that hard-hearted modern method applied to babies.
A sight-seeing car had paused while the gentleman with the megaphone
explained to a few late tourists the Arroyo Seco, that great river-bed
with only a trickle of water at the bottom, on whose brink our house
perches. At home two plumbers were playfully tossing bricks about our
courtyard in a half-hearted endeavor to find out why our cellar was
flooded. Hence the back bedroom. No amount of cotton wool in one's ears,
however, could camouflage a telephone bell.
"The Red Cross Executive Committee will meet at ten on Wednesday."
A short interval followed. "Will Mr. S---- make a 'four-minute' speech
on Friday at the Strand Theatre for the Liberty Bond Campaign?"
Another interval during which I began to feel drowsy.
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