Baffin came bouncing in one morning and bounced me off the gas-stove.
His hair was ruffled and his face was flushed and his eyes were flashing sparks.
"My God!" he cried. "I—I've made a weird, a wild, a terrible discovery. Good God, who would have thought it! That child, mind you, that imbecile. 'God, sir, if this were a humane and Christian country, I should be allowed to call the damned beast out and carve patterns on him."
"You are referring to——"
"Prudence—Prudence," responded Baffin, with agitation. "She HAS TOLD ME ALL. Come in and see her."
Prudence had flung herself down upon a grimy sugar-box, and lay there, still and bruised and broken. There was an awful quiet in the room.
Baffin resumed his remarks in reference to the subject of damned beasts. I hushed him with a grave, paternal glance.
"Think of poor Prudence," I said.
Prudence rose slowly to her feet. She thrust back the hair from before her eyes.
"Oh, my Gawd! Mr. Baffin," she said, "you do gow in for the funniest talk ever! 'Ere—I say, when I was down there, do you know what I see? I see as there is a crack in that sugar-box; I do believe that's where I dropped that picture powstcard what I lorst 'ere last sittin'.