There Was an Old Woman [= The Quick And the Dead]

Charley whispered in Ellery’s ear: “Ask him to explain his philosophy of life to you.”

Ellery did so.

“Glad to,” boomed Horatio. “Now you’re a man, Mr. Queen. You have worries, responsibilities, you lead a heavy, grown-up sort of life. Don’t you?”

“Well... yes,” stammered Ellery.

“But it’s so simple!” beamed Horatio. “Here sit down — throw those marbles on the floor. The happiest part of a man’s life is his boyhood, and I don’t care if he was brought up in Gallipolis, Ohio, or Hester Street, New York.” Ellery wiggled his brows. “All right, now take me. If I had to make shoes in a factory, or tell other men to make ’em, or write advertising, or dig ditches, or do any of the tiresome things men have to do to be men — why, I’d be like you, Mr. Queen, or like Charley Paxton here, who always goes around with a worried look.” Charley grinned feebly. “But I don’t have to. So I fly kites, I run miniature trains, I build twelve-foot bridges and airplane models, I read Superman and Hairbreadth Harry, detective stories, fairy tales, children’s verses... I even write ’em.” Horatio seized a couple of highly colored books from his desk. “The Little Old Dog of Dogwood Street, by Horatio Potts. The Purple Threat, by Horatio Potts. Here are a dozen more boys’ stories, all by me.”

“Horatio,” said Charley reverently, “publishes ’em himself, too.”

“Right now I’m writing my major opus, Mr. Queen,” roared Horatio happily. “A new modern version of Mother Goose. It’s going to be my monument, mark my words.”

“Even has his meals served there,” said Charley as they strolled back to the main house. “Well, Ellery, what do you think of Horatio Potts?”

“He’s either the loonist loon of them all,” growled Mr. Queen, “or he’s the only sane man alive on the planet!”

Dinner was served in a Hollywood motion-picture set by extras — or so it seemed to Ellery, who sat down to the most remarkable meal of his life. The dining-room ceiling was a forest of rafters, and one had to crane to count them. Everything was on the same Brobdingnagian scale — a logical outgrowth, no doubt, of the giant that was Pottsism. Nothing less than a California redwood could have provided the one-piece immensity of the table. The linen and silver were heavier than Ellery had ever hefted, the crockery was grander, and the stemware more intricate. The credenza groaned. If the Old Woman was hen of a batty brood, at least she did not make them scratch for their grub. This was the board of plenty.

The twins, Robert and Maclyn, had not appeared for dinner. They had telephoned their mother that they were held up “at the office.”