"You don't mean any violence, Hi 'ope, sir?"
"I don't know yet what I mean; but go on back in."
He turns around just about in time, for now I seen two or three people coming in at our front gate. I didn't know any of them. They was young fellows. One of them ast me if I knew anything about the alleged elopement. Then I seen word had got out somehow—like enough from our Annette or their Emmy, and these was maybe newspaper reporters come up to see about it.
"I haven't heard of any elopement," says I. "I was just calling our butler down for flirting some with one of their hired girls over there."
"May we talk to your butler?" ast one of them.
"No; you can't," says I, "because he's gone in to see about breakfast."
One of the young fellows looked up and sort of scratched his head with a lead pencil.
"I say," says he, "are we on a high love story or one of the servants' quarters? Tell us, friend"—he says to me—"can't you help us out on this?"
"It ain't in my line of business," says I; "but it seems plain, if their hired man has run away with our maid, or our butler run away with theirs, it ain't story enough to bother a alderman or his foreman about before breakfast."
"Well, lemme get a picture of the wall, anyways," says he; and he done that before I could help it.