Complete Stories by Dorothy Parker, Colleen Bresse, Regina Barreca

he used to come to the table right up to this stroke,” Mr. Bain related, chuckling reminiscently. “My, he used to raise Cain when Allie didn’t cut up his meat fast enough to suit him. Always had a temper, I’ll tell you, the Old Gentleman did. Wouldn’t stand for us having anybody in to meals—he didn’t like that worth a cent. Eighty-four years old, and sitting right up there at the table with us!”
    They vied in telling instances of the Old Gentleman’s intelligence and liveliness, as parents cap one another’s anecdotes of precocious children.
    “It’s only the past year that he had to be helped up- and downstairs,” said Mrs. Bain. “Walked up-stairs all by himself, and more than eighty years old!”
    Mrs. Whittaker was amused.
    “I remember you said that once when Clint was here,” she remarked, “and Clint said, ‘Well, if you can’t walk up-stairs by the time you’re eighty, when are you going to learn?’ ”
    Mrs. Bain smiled politely, because her brother-in-law had said it. Otherwise she would have been shocked and wounded.
    “Yes, sir,” said Mr. Bain. “Wonderful.”
    “The only thing I could have wished,” Mrs. Bain said, after a pause—“I could have wished he’d been a little different about Paul. Somehow I’ve never felt quite right since Paul went into the navy.”
    Mrs. Whittaker’s voice fell into the key used for the subject that has been gone over and over and over again.
    “Now, Allie,” she said, “you know yourself that was the best thing that could have happened. Father told you that himself, often and often. Paul was young, and he wanted to have all his young friends running in and out of the house, banging doors and making all sorts of racket, and it would have been a terrible nuisance for father. You must realize that father was more than eighty years old, Allie.”
    “Yes, I know,” Mrs. Bain said. Her eyes went to the photograph of her son in his seaman’s uniform, and she sighed.
    “And besides,” Mrs. Whittaker pointed out triumphantly, “now that Miss Chester’s here in Paul’s room, there wouldn’t have been any room for him. So you see!”
    There was rather a long pause. Then Mrs. Bain edged toward the other thing that had been weighing upon her.
    “Hattie,” she said, “I suppose—I suppose we’d ought to let Matt know?”
    “I shouldn’t,” said Mrs. Whittaker composedly. She always took great pains with her “shall’s” and “will’s.” “I only hope that he doesn’t see it in the papers in time to come on for the funeral. If you want to have your brother turn up drunk at the services, Allie, I don’t.”
    “But I thought he’d straightened up,” said Mr. Bain. “Thought he was all right since he got married.”
    “Yes, I know, I know, Lewis,” Mrs. Whittaker said wearily. “I’ve heard all about that. All I say is, I know what Matt is.”
    “John Loomis was telling me,” reported Mr. Bain, “he was going through Akron, and he stopped off to see Matt. Said they had a nice little place, and he seemed to be getting along fine. Said she seemed like a cracker-jack housekeeper.”
    Mrs. Whittaker smiled.
    “Yes,” she said, “John Loomis and Matt were always two of a kind—you couldn’t believe a word either of them said. Probably she did seem to be a good housekeeper. I’ve no doubt she acted the part very well. Matt never made any bones of the fact that she was on the stage once, for almost a year. Excuse me from having that woman come to Father’s funeral. If you want to know what I think, I think that Matt marrying a woman like that had a good deal to do with hastening Father’s death.”
    The Bains sat in awe.
    “And after all Father did for Matt, too,” added Mrs. Whittaker, her voice shaken.
    “Well, I should think so,” Mr. Bain was glad to agree. I remember how the Old Gentleman used to try and help Matt get along. He’d go down, like it was to Mr. Fuller, that time Matt was working at the bank, and