a! Come here! Lindy says you're her husband. Is that so?"

"Oh, yes," says he, as easy as you please. "Under your laws I suppose I
am."

"Well, wouldn't that frost you!" says I.

"But, say, Sadie, why don't she come down and see him, then?"

"Just what I've been asking her," says Sadie. "She says she's too busy,
and that if he wants to see her he must come up."

"Well, what do you know!" says I. "Pasha, do you want to see her?"

"As I have told," says he, "there is no need. I do not demand it."

"Well, of all the cold-blooded pairs!" says I. "How long since you've
seen her?"

"Very long," says he; "perhaps twenty years."

"And now all you can work up is a mild curiosity for a glimpse through
the window, eh?" says I.

He shrugs his shoulders careless.

"Then, by the great horned spoon," I goes on, "you're goin' to get what
you came after! Trail along upstairs after me. This way. In through
here. There you are, Pasha! Lindy, here's your Don Carlos!"

"Oh!" says she, lookin' up from the shirt-waist she was bastin' a sleeve
on, and not even botherin' to take the pins out of her mouth.

And maybe they ain't some cross-mated couple too! This Pasha party shows
up ponderous and imposin', in spite of the funny little fez arrangement
on his head. He's thrown his cloak back, revealin' a regulation frock
coat; but under that is some sort of a giddy-tinted silk blouse effect,
and the fringed ends of a bright red sash hangs down below his knee on
the left side. He's got a color on him like the inside of an old
coffeepot, and the heavy, crinkly beard makes him look like some foreign
Ambassador. While Lindy--well, in her black sewin' dress and white
apron, she looks slimmer and more old maidish than ever.

He confines his greetin' to a nod of the head, and stands there gazin'
at her as calm as if he was starin' at some stranger in the street.

"I suppose you've come to take me away with you, Carlos?" says she.

"No," says he.

"But I thought," says Lindy, "I--I thought some day you might. I didn't
know, though. I haven't planned on it."

"Is it your wish to go with me?" says he.

"Why, I'm your wife, you know," says she.

"You had my letters, did you?" he goes on.

"Four," says she. "There was one from Spain, when you were a brigand,
and another----"

"A brigand!" breaks in Sadie. "Do you mean that, Lindy?"

"Wasn't that it?" asks Lindy of him.

"For two years, Madam," says Don Carlos, bowin' polite. "A dul