“I gave him my I. O. U.,” Collier Pratt said wearily. “If you don’t mind, Hitty,—I really 291 must be excused from your inexcusable surname—I am going to drink a cup of coffee before we continue this interesting discussion—café noir, our late unfortunate accident depriving me of café au lait as usual. Sheila, get the cups.”
“You don’t mean to say that you feed that peaked child with full strength coffee, do you? It’ll stunt her growth; ain’t you got the sense to know that?”
“I don’t like big women,” Collier Pratt said. “She’s very fond of coffee.”
“Well! I’ve come to get her and take her away where you won’t be in a position to stunt her growth, whatever your ideas on the subject is.”
Collier Pratt seated himself at the deal table that Sheila had set with the coffee-cups and a big loaf of French bread, and began slowly consuming a bowl of inky fluid, strong of chicory, into which from time to time he dipped a portion of the loaf. Sheila imitated his processes with less daintiness and precision, since she was shaken with excitement at Hitty’s appearance.
“I should spread a newspaper down if I was 292 you,” Hitty said, “before I et my vittles off a table that way. If a table ain’t scrubbed as often as twice a day it ain’t fit to be et off.”
“I know your breed,” Collier Pratt said. “You’d be capable of taking your breakfast off The Evening Telegram if no more appropriately colored sheet were at hand. Tell me, did Miss Martin send you here this morning, or was the inspiration to come entirely your own?”
“Nobody had to send me. Wild horses wouldn’t have kept me away from here.”
“Nor drag you away from here, I suppose, until your gruesome visit is accomplished. What makes you think that I would give up Sheila to you?”
“I don’t think you would. I know you’re a-goin’ to.”