Let gentility look out for
the sharp practices of the Yankee.
"Yes, but--"
It was our hero, our madman of the seven and seventy seas, our
revolutionist friend of Istra, who leaped straight from the
salt-incrusted decks of his laboring steamer to the musty parlor
and declared, quietly but unmovably-practically
unmovably--"Well, then, I guess I'd better not take it at all."
"So that's the way you're going to treat us!" bellowed Mrs.
Zapp. "You go off and leave us with an unoccupied room and--
Oh! You poor white trash--you--"
"_Ma!_ You shut up and go down-stairs-s-s-s-s!" Theresa hissed.
"Go on."
Mrs. Zapp wabbled regally out. Lee Theresa spoke to Mr. Wrenn:
"Ma ain't feeling a bit well this afternoon. I'm sorry she
talked like that. You will come back, won't you?" She showed
all her teeth in a genuine smile, and in her anxiety reached
his heart. "Remember, you promised you would."
"Well, I will, but--"
Bill Wrenn was fading, an affrighted specter. The "but" was
the last glimpse of him, and that Theresa overlooked, as she
bustlingly chirruped: "I _knew_ you would understand.
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