HICKORY DOCK
ver, and a fair-sized boxful of lace and ruffles that idled under the couch until the Wedding-Day. The room was strikingly homelike, masculinely homelike, in all its features, but it was by no means home—yet. No place is home until two people have latch keys. The Girl wore her key ostentatiously on a long, fine chain round her neck, but its mate hung high and dusty on a brass hook over the fireplace, and the sight of it teased the Man more than any thing else that had ever happened to him in his life. The Girl was easily mistress of the situation, but the Man, you see, was not yet Master.
It was tacitly understood that if the Wedding-Day ever arrived, the Girl should slip the extra key into her husband's hand the very first second that the Minister closed his eyes for the blessing. She would have chosen to do this openly in exchange for her ring, but the Man contended that it might not be legal to be married with a latch-key—some ministers are so particular. It was a joke, anyway—everything except the Wedding-Day itself. Meanwhile Hickory Dock kept track of the passing hours.
When the Man first brought Hickory Dock to the Girl, in a mysteriously pulsating tissue-paper pack age, the Girl pretended at once that she thought it was a dynamite bomb, and dropped it precipitously on the table and sought immediate refuge in the
34
