Who's sorry now?

about a petition to gather support for my idea?” he asked. ”Getting lots of signatures to present at a meeting, if they call one soon?”
    ”Even better,” Walker agreed. ”Now leave me alone.”
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    AT DINNER THAT EVENING, Robert told the whole household—the Prinneys, Lily, Mimi the maid, and their boarders—Phoebe Twinkle, the town milliner, and Mrs. Tarkington, the principal of the grade school—what he’d seen and heard at the railroad station earlier.
    They were all shocked. ”I don’t receive a lot of letters,” Mrs. Tarkington said. ”But when I do, I don’t want strangers examining them.”
    ”Nor do I,” Mr. Prinney said. He was the executor of their great-uncle Horatio’s trust and had become a friend and mentor, especially to Lily. ”The very idea of considering disposing of a letter to someone else for her own good is appalling and possibly illegal. What can be done about this?”
    ”I talked to Howard Walker about it and we came to the conclusion that a petition ought to be presented to the town council members. We’d ask that someone—probably the Harbinger boys—but we won’t say that in the petition—could build a piece of furniture that has a whole lot of drawers or boxes with doors, labeled with citizens’ names.”
    ”That wouldn’t stop the snoops,” Lily said.
    ”It would certainly discourage them,” Robert said. And the stationmaster, who would have it in his line of sight, could tell them to only pick up their own mail and leave other people’s mail alone.”
    Phoebe Twinkle spoke up. ”Who would sort it?”
    ”The porter,” Robert said. ”Poor McBride makes almost nothing on tips and lives in a shed. I’d like to suggest that he be paid a small salary to sort the mail between trains. But it would have to come out of the town’s budget.”
    ”How is the town’s budget collected?” Phoebe Twinkle asked.
    Mr. Prinney said, ”In a number of ways. Small taxes for selling cars and property. Fines leveled against bad drivers, and our own property taxes. It mainly funds the grade school.”
    ”Not nearly well enough,” Mrs. Tarkington, the principal of the grade school, piped up.
    ”If we can’t squeeze out a tiny bit of money to pay McBride for sorting the mail,” Lily asked, ”couldn’t it be provided by Great-uncle Horatio’s trust? For the good of the town and as a charitable deduction?”
    Mr. Prinney frowned for a moment. ”I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
    ”Why not?” Lily asked, very politely. ”We’re not even asking our farmers in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Colorado to pay their mortgages because of the drought, and are more than making it up on the income from the mortgages on the land in California where the movie companies are making money hand over fist.”
    ”You have a good point there, Lily,” Mr. Prinney admitted. He was pleased at how well she was learning about the trust Horatio Brewster had left in his hands to eventually end up controlled by his heirs when the time came to turn it over to them.
    ”We could donate a small amount anonymously, couldn’t we?” Robert asked. ”But only if the town council doesn’t cough it up. I’ve written up an explanation of the purpose of a petition to appeal to citizens. I’ll read it to you after dinner.”
    When they’d all settled in the library, with the French doors to the small balcony open so they could enjoy the surprisingly warm evening, only Mimi was missing. She was clearing the table and washing up the dinnerware.
    Mrs. Prinney served tea as well as coffee for herself, Lily, Mrs. Tarkington, and Phoebe. Robert and Mr. Prinney stood by the balcony with cigars and glasses of wine. Robert soon put his wineglass down and started reading the explanation of the petition he’d written.
    The rest were attentive and approving until he read ”... this came to my attention when I heard three gossipy old biddies...”
    There was an uproar of objections. Robert just laughed. ”It’s not really in the petition. But I will tell people I ask to sign about it. I’ll sign the first line. Do the rest of you want to sign it tonight?”
    Lily said, ”I think our signatures should be scattered throughout instead of in a lump at the beginning. We don’t mind your rabble-rousing, but we don’t want to give a wrong impression that the only people who care all live here.”
    ”Okey dokey,” Robert said as he took a fountain pen out of an inside pocket of