“No, I haven't,” said Madame Griggs. Then she loosened the flood-gates of her grievance upon the boy. “No, I haven't been paid,” said she, “and I've worked like a dog, and I'm owing for the things I bought in New York, and I'm owing my girls, and if I don't get paid before long, I'm ruined, and that's all there is to it. I 'ain't been paid, and it's a month since your sister was married, and they'll send out to collect the bills from the stores, if I don't pay them. It's a cruel thing, and I don't care if I do say it.” The woman was flouncing along the street beside the boy, and she spoke in a loud, shrill voice. “It's a cruel thing,” she repeated. “If I couldn't pay for my wedding fix I'd never get married, before I'd go and cheat a poor dress-maker. She'd ought to be ashamed of herself, and so had all your folks. I don't care if I do say it. They are nuthin' but a pack of swindlers, that's what they be.”
Suddenly the boy danced in front of the furious little woman, and stood there, barring her progress. “They ain't!” said he.
“They be.”
“They ain't! You can't pay folks if you 'ain't got any money.”
“You needn't have the things, then,” sniffed Madame Griggs.
“My sister had to have the things to get married, didn't she? A girl can't get married without the clothes.”
“Let her pay for 'em, then.”
“I'll tell you what to do!” cried Eddy, looking at her with a sudden inspiration. “You are in debt, ain't you?”
“Yes, I be,” replied Madame Griggs, hopping nervously along by the boy's side, poor little dressmaker, aping French gentility, holding her skirts high, with a disclosure of a papery silk petticoat and a meagre ankle. Even in her distress she felt of her frizzes to see if they were in order after a breeze had struck her in the sharp, eager face. “Yes, I be.”
“Well,” said the boy, delightedly, “I can tell you just what to do, you know.”