Queed | Page 6

this gift horse over very closely. What is it?"
"They call it dunning."
"I forgot. You started to tell me, and then your dog ran amuck and began butting perfect strangers all over the place."
"Oh," said she, "it's the commonest little story in the world. All landladies can tell them to you by the hour. This man has been at Aunt Jennie's nearly a month, and what's the color of his money she hasn't the faintest idea. Such is the way our bright young men carve out their fortunes--the true Gothic architecture! Possibly Aunt Jennie has thrown out one or two delicate hints, carefully insulated to avoid hurting his feelings. You know the way our ladies of the old school do--the worst collectors the world has ever seen. So she telephoned me this morning--I'm her business woman, you see--asking me to come and advise her, and I'm coming, and after supper--"
"Well, what'll you do?"
"I'm going to talk with him, with the man. I'm simply going to _collect that money_. Or if I can't--"
"What's the horrid alternative?"
"I'm going to fire him!"
West laughed merrily. His face always looked most charming when he smiled. "Upon my word I believe you can do it."
"I have done it, lots of times."
"Ah! And is the ceremony ever attended by scenes of storm and violence?"
"Never. They march like little lambs when I say the word. Hay-foot--straw-foot!"
"But then your aunt loses their arrears of board, I suppose."
"Yes, and for that reason I never fire except as a last desperate resort. Signs of penitence, earnest resolves to lead a better life, are always noted and carefully considered."
"If you should need help with this customer to-night--not that I think you will, oh no!--telephone me. I'm amazingly good at handling bright young men. This is your aunt's, isn't it?"
"No, no--next to the corner over there. O heavens! Look--look!"
West looked. Up the front steps of Miss Weyland's Aunt Jennie's a man was going, a smallish man in a suit of dusty clothes, who limped as he walked. The electric light at the corner illumined him perfectly--glinted upon the spectacles, touched up the stout volume in the coat-pocket, beat full upon the swaybacked derby, whereon its owner had sat what time Charlotte Lee Weyland apologized for the gaucherie of Behemoth. And as they watched, this man pushed open Aunt Jennie's front door, with never so much as a glance at the door-bell, and stepped as of right inside.
Involuntarily West and Miss Weyland had halted; and now they stared at each other with a kind of wild surmise which rapidly yielded to ludicrous certainty. West broke into a laugh.
"Well, do you think you'll have the nerve to fire him?"

II
_Mrs. Paynter's Boarding-House: which was not founded as an Eleemosynary Institution._
There was something of a flutter among the gathered boarders when Miss Weyland was seen to be entering the house, and William Klinker, who announced the fact from his place by the window, added that that had ought to help some with the supper. He reminded the parlor that there had been Porterhouse the last time. Miss Miller, from the sofa, told Mr. Klinker archly that he was so material. She had only the other day mastered the word, but even that is more than could be said for Mr. Klinker. Major Brooke stood by the Latrobe heater, reading the evening paper under a flaring gas-light. He habitually came down early to get it before anybody else had a chance. By Miss Miller on the sofa sat Mr. Bylash, stroking the glossy moustache which other ladies before her time had admired intensely. Despite her archness Miss Miller had heard with a pang that Miss Weyland was coming to supper, and her reason was not unconnected with this same Mr. Bylash. In earlier meetings she had vaguely noted differences between Mrs. Paynter's pretty niece and herself. True, she considered these differences all in her own favor, as, for example, her far larger back pompadour, with the puffs, but you never could tell about gentlemen.
"I'm surprised," she said to Mr. Klinker, "Mr. Bylash didn't go out to give her the glad hand, and welcome her into our humble coturee."
Mr. Bylash, who had been thinking of doing that very thing, said rather shortly that the ladies present quite satisfied him.
"And who do you think brought her around and right up to the door?" continued William Klinker, taking no notice of their blandishments. "Hon. West--Charles Gardenia West--"
A scream from Miss Miller applauded the witty hit.
"Oh, it ain't mine," said Mr. Klinker modestly. "I heard a fellow get it off at the shop the other day. He's a pretty smooth fellow, Charles Gardenia is--a little too smooth for my way of thinking. A fellow that's always so smilin'--Oh, you Smithy!" he suddenly yelled out the window--"Smithy! Hey!--Aw, I can beat the face off