"You'll excuse me, good people," said Grimgriskin, "for the intrusion; but business is business, and if one don't attend to one's business, it's highly probable one's business will make unto itself wings, and, in a manner of speaking, fly away: not that I want to make you feel uncomfortable. I flatter myself, in this establishment, nobody need be under such a disagreeable apprehension; but houses won't keep themselves, at least I never knew any so to do. Lodgings is lodgings, and board is board; moreover, markets—specially at this season of the year—may reasonably be said to be markets; beef and mutton don't jump spontaneously into one's hands; promiscuous-like, neither do the hydrants run tea and coffee—at least as far as my knowledge of hydrants goes."
"The plain sense of all this is"——
"Exactly what I am coming to," interrupted the voluble hostess. "I'm a woman of few words; but those few, such as they are, I'm proud to say, are generally to the purpose. I make it a point to send in my bills regularly every month, and I presume that it's not an unreasonable stretch of imagination to expect them to be paid. Now, for the last three months they have come up to you receipted, and down to me with what one might call the autographical corner torn off. Now, as it is not in my nature to make any one feel uncomfortable, and being a woman of very few words, I would merely intimate to you that rents is rents—and, moreover, must be paid—and mine, I am sorry to observe, is not a singular exception in such respect."
"My dear Mrs. Grim"——
"One moment!" interposed the woman of few words. "Perhaps you may not be aware of the circumstance, but I have my eyes open—and, moreover, my ears—whispers is whispers, and I have heard something that might make you uncomfortable; but as that is not my principle, I won't repeat it; but talkers, you know, will be talkers, and boarders can never be anything else in the world but boarders."
"What have they dared to say of us?" inquired Henry.
"Nothing—oh! nothing to be repeated—dear, no! I'm proud to observe that my boarders pay regularly every month, and are therefore highly respectable; and respectable boarders make a respectable house, and I wouldn't keep anything else. Thank Heaven, I have that much consideration for my own respectability!"
"May I be permitted to ask what all this amounts to?" asked Henry, with commendable resignation.
"Just two hundred dollars," sharply replied Mrs. Grimgriskin; "being eighty for board, and one hundred and twenty for extras. I'm a woman of few words"——
"And I'm a man of less," said Henry, "I can't pay it."