“Sue?” says Sewell; “sue? You go guess again! You send in you’ bill, that’s what you do. You ain’t earned nothin’–but, by jingo, it’s worth money just to git shet of such a dog-goned shyster as you. Git.”
And with that, out goes Mister Bugs.
Then, grandpaw, he turns round to the baby again, plumb took up with them four new nippers. “Cluck, cluck,” he says like a chicken, and pokes the kid under the chin. Over one shoulder, he says to Billy, “And, Trowbridge, you can make out you’ bill, too.”
Billy didn’t answer nothin’. Just went over to a table, pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil, and begun t’ write. Pretty soon, he got up and come back.
“Here, Mister Sewell,” he says.
I was right byside the ole man, and–couldn’t help it–I stretched to read what Billy’d writ. And this was what it was:
“Mister Zach Sewell, debtor to W. A. Trowbridge, fer medical services–the hand of one Rose Andrews in marriage.”
Sewell, he read the paper over and over, turnin’ all kinds of colours. And Silly and me come blamed nigh chokin’ from holdin’ our breaths. Rose was lookin’ up at us, and at her paw, too, turrible anxious. As fer that kid, it was a-kickin’ its laigs into the air and gurglin’ like a bottle.
Fin’lly, the ole man handed the paper back. “Doc,” he says, “Rose is past twenty-one, and not a’ idjit. Also, the kid is hern. So, bein’ this bill reads the way it does, mebbe you’d better hand it t’ her. If she don’t think it’s too steep a figger––”
Billy took the paper and give it over to Rose. When she read it, her face got all blushy; and happy, too, I could see that.