“No, not exactly. Mr. Kling will explain.”
“It vas dot dressin'-case, Kitty, vat I showed you last night—de vun vid dem bottles vid de silver tops—and dey are real—I found dot out after you vent avay.”
Kitty's glance softened, and her voice fell to a sympathetic tone. “Oh, that was yours, was it? I might have known I was right about ye when I first see ye. Ye are a gentleman, unless ye are a thief, and I don't belave that—nor nobody can make me belave it.”
Once more his hand was raised, and a smile flashed from his eyes and as quickly died out.
“That is very good of you, Mrs. Cleary. No, I am not a thief. And now about the room. Can I see it? But, before you answer, let me tell you that I have only these twenty-five dollars on which I can lay my hands. Some of this I owe to my landlady. The balance I am quite willing to turn over to you, and when it is all gone I will move somewhere else.” He drew a silver watch from his pocket. “You must decide at once; it is getting late and I must be moving on.”
Kitty squared herself, her hands on her hips—a favorite gesture when her mind was fully made up—looked straight at the speaker as if to reply, then suddenly catching sight of a strapping-looking fellow in blue overalls, a trunk on one shoulder, a carpetbag in his hand, called out: “John, dear, come here! I want ye. Here, Mike! You and Bobby get that steamer baggage out on the sidewalk, and don't be slack about it, for it goes to Hoboken, and there may be a block in the river and the ferry-boats behind time. Wait, I'll lend ye a hand.”
“You'll lend nothing, Kitty Cleary! Get out of my way,” came her husband's hearty answer. “Ye hurt yer back last week. There's men enough round here to—stop it, I tell ye!” and he loosened her fingers from the lifting-strap.
“I can hist the two of ye, John! Go along wid ye!”
“No, Kitty, darlin'—let go of it,” and with a twist of his hand and lurch of his shoulder John shot the trunk over the edge of the wagon, tossed the bag after it, and joined the group, the stranger absorbed in watching the husband and wife.
“And now the trunk's in, what's it you want, Kitty?” asked John squeezing her plump arm, as if in compensation for having had his way.