"

"What!"

"Yes-sah, and cleaned out his room clean; tuck bofe towels en de soap!"

"You lie, you hussy!"

"It's jes' so, jes' as I tells you--en Misto Summer's socks is gone, en
Misto Naylor's yuther shirt."

Mr. Marsh was at boiling point by this time. He turned upon Tracy:

"Answer up now--when are you going to settle?"

"To-day--since you seem to be in a hurry."

"To-day is it? Sunday--and you out of work? I like that. Come--where
are you going to get the money?"

Tracy's spirit was rising again. He proposed to impress these people:

"I am expecting a cablegram from home."

Old Marsh was caught out, with the surprise of it. The idea was so
immense, so extravagant, that he couldn't get his breath at first. When
he did get it, it came rancid with sarcasm.

"A cablegram--think of it, ladies and gents, he's expecting a cablegram!
He's expecting a cablegram--this duffer, this scrub, this bilk! From his
father--eh? Yes--without a doubt. A dollar or two a word--oh, that's
nothing--they don't mind a little thing like that--this kind's fathers
don't. Now his father is--er--well, I reckon his father--"

"My father is an English earl!"

The crowd fell back aghast-aghast at the sublimity of the young loafer's
"cheek." Then they burst into a laugh that made the windows rattle.
Tracy was too angry to realize that he had done a foolish thing. He
said:

"Stand aside, please. I--"

"Wait a minute, your lordship," said Marsh, bowing low, "where is your
lordship going?"

"For the cablegram. Let me pass."

"Excuse me, your lordship, you'll stay right where you are."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I didn't begin to keep boarding-house yesterday. It means
that I am not the kind that can be taken in by every hack-driver's son
that comes loafing over here because he can't bum a living at home. It
means that you can't skip out on any such--"

Tracy made a step toward the old man, but Mrs. Marsh sprang between, and
said:

"Don't, Mr. Tracy, please." She turned to her husband and said, "Do
bridle your tongue. What has he done to be treated so? Can't you see he
has lost his mind, with trouble and distress? He's not responsible."

"Thank your kind heart, madam, but I've not lost my mind; and if I can
have the mere privilege of stepping to the telegraph office--"

"Well, you can't," cried Marsh.

"--or sending--"

"Sending! That beats everything. If there's anybody that's foo