"W'ich 'at do settle it!" I says, very lamentful. "Ef Mr. Dallas ain't told you 'bout his twin brother neither, it suttinly is a shore sign to me 'at he wuz aimin' to purserve ever'thing ez a precious secret frum you fur the time bein'. I 'spects he'll jest more'n snatch me ball-haided fur this, Miss DeWitt. Please, ma'am, don't say nothin' to him 'bout my havin' give you the tip, will you?"
"I don't want tips," she says, "I want facts. And I'm going to have them here and now—and from you! If you want to get out of here with a whole skin you'll quit your vague mumblings about wills and children and estates and twin brothers that I never heard of before, and you'll tell me in plain words the entire story, whatever it is, that has been held back from me so carefully. You tell it beginning to end!"
"Yassum," I says, "jest ez you wishes, ma'am." I tries to make my voice sound like I'm scared half to death, which it don't call for no great amount of putting-on on my part neither, because she has done shed all her laziness and all her silkiness and all her smoothness same as a blue-racer sheds his skin in the spring of the year, and she's done bared her real het-up dangersome self before me. "Jest ez you wishes," I says, "only I do trus' an' pray at you'll purtec' me frum Mr. Dallases' wrath w'en he finds out I done spilt ever'thin' so premanture-lak."
"Forget it!" she says. "It strikes me I'm the one who needs protection if anybody does. Now, without any more dodging or ducking you give me the truth, understand? No original embroidery of your own, either—the cold truth, all of it! And if I find out afterwards that you've been holding back a single detail from me——!"
With that she stops short and pins me with them eyes of hers. I can't hardly keep from flinching back from before her. If she was a hornet it'd be high time to start one of the hands off to the nearest drugstore after the soothing ointments, because somebody certainly would be due to get all stung up. Rejoiceful though I is inside of me to see how nice she's grabbed at all the hints which I has flung out to her like fishing-baits, one after another, I'd be almost as glad if I was outside that room talking to her through the keyhole. But it's shore dependent on me to set easy and keep on play-acting and not make no slips. Things is going well, but they has got to go still better yet if she's to swallow down the main dose.
Chapter XVII
Sable Plots
SO I spreads out both my hands like as if I'm plumb cowed down and licked, and then I starts in handing out to her the yarn which I'd spent half the night before piecing it together in my mind. It's a mighty nice kind of romancing, if I do say so, and full of plausibleness, 'specially that part of it which is built up on what I remembers the old judge having told me about the curious case which come up that time in one of the adjoining counties. But the rest of it, including the most fanciest touches, such as Mr. Clarence and the old maiden-lady aunt and the two sets of triplets and all, has been made up to order right out of my own head, and I asks credit.
And now, whilst I'm setting there telling it to her and watching her close to see how she's taking it, I'm praying to the Good Lord, asking Him will He please, Master, forgive me for onloading such a monstrous pack of what-ain't-so on an onsuspecting and worked-up lady. And at the same time I'm hoping the spirit of Mr. Dallases' dear departed father, which he was one of the nicest, quietest old gentlemen that ever breathed, won't come ha'nting me for low-rating his memory so scandalous. I knows full well he must be turning over in the grave faster and faster every minute which passes. I only can trust he don't see fit to rise from it.