"
"Well, then, all I can say is the furniture ought to be solid gold for
that; inlaid with rubies and picked out with platinum."
But it wasn't. In fact, it wasn't solid anything, being mostly of a very
impermanent structure and style. Pinky explained that she had kept the
best for the last. The thing that worried Father Brewster was that, no
matter at what hour of the day they might happen to call on the
prospective lessor, that person was always feminine and hatted. Once it
was eleven in the morning. Once five in the afternoon.
"Do these New York women wear hats in the house all the time?" demanded
Hosea Brewster worriedly. "I think they sleep in 'em. It's a wonder they
ain't bald. Maybe they are. Maybe that's why. Anyway, it makes you feel
like a book agent."
He sounded excited and tired. "Now, father!" said Mrs. Brewster,
soothingly.
They were in the elevator that was taking them up to the fourth and
(according to Pinky) choicest apartment. The building was what is known
as a studio apartment, in the West Sixties. The corridors were done in
red flagstones, with grey-tone walls. The metal doors were painted grey.
Pinky was snickering. "Now she'll say: 'Well, we've been very
comfortable here.' They always do. Don't look too eager."
"No fear," put in Hosey Brewster.
"It's really lovely. And a real fireplace. Everything new and good.
She's asking two hundred and twenty-five. Offer her one seventy-five.
She'll take two hundred"
"You bet she will," growled Hosea.
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