"I'm collecting a bill for Goldstein Brothers—that's my business, collecting. I know it's a little bit late at night, but I can't help that. I've got to hump myself; I thought I might find somebody up on account of the blow-out——"
"It's an outrage, sir, an outrage which no Southern gentleman——" said Colonel Pallinder, turning from his wife. "I repeat, sir, no Southern gentleman——"
"If we had the money, don't you suppose we'd pay your old bill?" cried Mrs. Pallinder, in a kind of hysterical screech. Her face was red and swollen with crying; her fair hair hung in strings. She ran to the banisters and shook her slim fist at the man, a tousled virago, unrecognisable in her rage. "Why don't you believe us? As if anybody wanted to owe you—as if anybody liked to owe you! It's too silly—you act perfectly crazy! We'd have given you the necklace if we'd had it, but we haven't got it—Huddesley's stolen it. What are you staying around here for? We haven't got the money and we haven't got the necklace, I tell you! Why don't you go away? You haven't any right here—you're a cheat, trying to collect for that necklace when we haven't got it. Make him go away, Willie!"
"That's right, Mirandy, you talk to him like a Dutch uncle!" said old Mrs. Botlisch with keen enjoyment.
"I don't care—I'm glad Huddesley has got it!" said Mazie fiercely.
"Owing to circumstances—a temporary shortage of funds, sir," said Colonel Pallinder, addressing J. B., blandly, "I have been unable to satisfy this fellow's monstrous, his preposterous demand. But if—Mr.—ah—Mr. Hopple will come around to my office to-morrow at half-past eleven sharp, I——"
Mr. Hopple's voice invited him to teach his grandmother to suck eggs. "This here bill's been owing three years, and I'm going to collect it, don't you worry—I'll be at the office. I'm going to collect if I've got to hang around this town till the cows come home!"
"You can't get blood out of a turnip," said Mr. Grimm philosophically. J. B. interrupted this lively exchange of metaphor.