“Seems to me,” says he, “it’s up t-to you to t-t-tell us what you are d-d-doin’ here.” He was a little excited and stuttered like everything.
The boy looked puzzled. “Why do you speak like that?” he says. “I have not before heard English spoken that way.”
Mark looked sort of taken back, and the rest of us laughed right out. The boy drew himself toward us and clenched his fists.
“You laugh at me,” he said, taking a step toward us.
“No,” says I, “we were laughin’ at Mark Tidd. The joke was on him. He stutters, you know.”
“Stutters? What is stutters?”
“Why, talks like you heard him. He can’t help it. It’s a sort of—of a disease,” says I.
Mark got red and turned on me quick. “It ain’t a disease,” says he, “and if it is it would do you g-g-good to catch it.”
“Never mind that,” says the boy, with a wave of his hand as if it didn’t matter much, anyhow. “What are you doing here?”
“Havin’ a g-good time,” says Mark. “Not that it’s any of your b-business. What are you doin’ here? We rent this hotel and p-pay for it. We’ve got a right to be here. What right have you to be prowlin’ around it?”