"It's Flora, sir," he uttered faintly.
"Flora?"
"Yes, sir." And Wilkes quailed before the judge's brows.
Miss Warfield sniffed.
The judge scowled at her. "Are you both crazy?" he demanded. "What is all this—what is it you have to tell? Say it all in a word—one or the other of you—and have done!" His jaw settled with a snap.
The housekeeper assumed an injured air. "Well, sir," she said with a toss, "it just means this: either I or Flora go at the end of this week—I give notice now!"
"All right," said the judge with a sort of bland ugliness, "then that's settled—you go! That is, unless you can get right down to brass tacks this instant and say what you've got to say."
And, black as thunder, the old boy laid his hand upon the knob. By Jove, it did me good to see her crinkle up!
"I'm sure I beg your pardon, Judge," she said, her voice modifying to a snuffling twang, "but this has so upset my nerves—Mr. Jack, of all men!" She fumbled for her handkerchief before she found it—Pugsley says they always do! "Such talk, sir! I never—" With a kind of gurgle, she suddenly flopped into the nearest chair and lay there, wriggling like a jolly auto freshly cranked, and snorting like its horn.
The judge, with head down, glared at her through his glasses.