"I knows how yer feel——"
Andy looked for a way of escape. But Minerva was too quick for him. She was a woman of enormous size, fat, jolly and extremely agile for her weight. She carried her two hundred and fifty pounds without apparent effort. She walked with a nervous, snappy energy and could waltz with the grace of a girl of sixteen.
She had reached Andy's side before his dull brain could think of an excuse for going. Her shining coal-black face was aglow with tenderness and the determination to make things easy for him in the declaration of love she had planned that he should make.
"I know how yer feels, Brer Andy," she repeated.
The victim mopped his perspiring brow and stammered:
"Yassam—yassam."
"Yer needn't be so 'barrassed, Mr. Andy," Minerva went on in the most insinuating tones. "Yer kin say what's on yer mind."
"Yassam."
"Come right here and set down er minute."
She seized his hand and drew him with a kittenish skip toward a settee, tripped on a bear rug and would have fallen had not Andy grabbed her.