“Go away, Primmie! Go AWAY!”
“I'm a-goin'. But was there?”
“Yes—ah—no—I—I guess so.”
“Lord everlastin' of Isrul! My savin' soul!”
Martha's footsteps on the stairs caused the head to disappear and the door to close. Miss Phipps appeared, her hand clasping a highly ornate document.
“Here's the certificate,” she said, breathlessly. “I'm so upset and excited I don't know hardly whether I'm in the channel or hard aground, as father used to say, but I've signed my name on the back. Once when I sold two shares of railroad stock he left me I had to sign on the back there. I HOPE I've done it in the right place.”
Galusha declared the signature to be quite right, yes. As a matter of fact, he could not have told for certain that there was a signature there. He crammed the certificate into his pocket.
“Oh, my sakes!” protested Martha, “you aren't goin' to just put it loose into that pocket, are you? Don't you think it ought to go in your—your wallet, or somewhere?”
“Eh? Why—why, I presume it had.... Dear me, yes.... It would be a—a joke if I lost it, wouldn't it?”
“A JOKE! Well, it wouldn't be my notion of a joke, exactly.”