The butler coughed faintly. "Well, sir, when she—h'm—refused—it was then he asked for Flora. 'All right, then you bring me my Flora,' was what he said, and he sounded irritated like. 'Beg pardon, sir?' says Perkins, putting his head to the crack kinder inquiringly. 'My Flora, man!' he comes back sharp; 'just find and bring my Flora—and some pins;'—he seemed particular about the pins—'if I've got to stay alone, I want something to divert me—I want my Flora!'" And the butler mopped his forehead.
The bundle erected itself. "His 'wild Flora,' was what he said," Miss Warfield corrected sharply; "he said he wanted to embrace—"
"Press," Wilkes corrected in turn.
She inflated with one drive of the piston. "If there's any difference, I don't know it!" came in a blow-out. And, dash me, if I believe she did. She looked it, by Jove!
She faced the judge, who was leaning back against the table, looking kind of punctured, don't you know. By Jove, it seemed to me he had grown five years older in as many minutes!
This seemed to brighten her. "Wanted to press his 'wild Flora'—his very words!" her voice rasped.
My, but that woman looked vicious! She blew her nose, crossed her hands, and propped herself on one foot with an air of ladylike resignation.
"I was so shocked you might have knocked me over with a feather, but I managed to speak to him—I don't know how I ever did it!—and I said: 'You don't mean Flora, sir—you can't treat Flora that way!' And if you could have seen the way he flew to pieces! 'Why can't I?' he yelled at me. 'Do you think I haven't done it before?' Exactly what he said and I could hardly believe my ears; and then"—here she began to wabble and the handkerchief came up—"then he—he called me a wo-woman!"
And, by Jove, she was off the road!
But it seemed to give the judge new interest in life! He just needed some jolly thing, you know; and now he flared up sudden and went up in the air like a freshly touched-off what's-its-name: