But some of the neighbors were fascinatingly careless
of inspection--and they always promised to be more careless than
they were.
Mrs. Thropp came rushing in from the kitchen. She had been trying
in vain to make a friend of Kedzie's one servant. But this maid,
like a self-respectful employee or a good soldier, resented the
familiarity of an official superior as an indecency and an insult.
She made up her mind to quit.
After Mrs. Thropp had expressed her wonderment at seeing her children
return, she turned the full power of her hospitality on poor Jim
Dyckman. He could not give notice and seek another job.
Mrs. Thropp's first problem was the proper style and title of
her son-in-law.
"What am I goin' to call you, anyhow?" she said. "_Jim_ sounds
kind of familiar on short acquaintance, and _James_ is sort of
distant. _Son-in-law_ is hor'ble, and _Son_ is--How would
you like it if I was to call you '_Son_'? What does your own
mother call you?"
"_Jimsy_" Jim admitted, shamefacedly.
"_Jimsy_ is right nice," said Mrs. Thropp, and she Jimsied him
thenceforward, to his acute distress. He found that he had married
not Kedzie only but all the Thropps there were. The father and mother
were the mere foreground of a vast backward and abyss of relations,
beginning with a number of Kedzie's brothers and sisters and their
wives and husbands. Jim was a trifle stunned to learn what lowly
jobs some of his brothers-in-law were glad to hold.
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