“Say, what’s the idea of keepin’ us outside?” asked Mabel, peevishly, after her father had returned. “You oughta know we’re safe, you ought.”
“What you don’t know won’t hurt you none,” her father answered, rubbing a finger over his thick lips. “Anybody’ll start blabbin’ when he gets a little booze in him—’specially a woman.”
“Aw, we know what it’s all about,” said Philip. “They’re pointing Thomas f’r a go with the champion, and Harry’s one guy he can’t beat, an’ he knows it. What’s Rainey going to hand out f’r Harry’s putting the wraps on, that’s what I’d like to know.”
“Listen, talk about somethin’ else,” Harry said, surlily.
He was a bit ashamed of his rôle in the affair—not from a sense of guilt but because it was a refutation of his two-fisted supremacy—and a bit childishly fearful that the “frame-up” would be discovered if any one, even a member of his family, conversed on the subject.
“You people sure hate to mind your own business,” he went on.
“That’s right, lay off,” said the father. “We’ll be havin’ thousands nex’ week, ’f ev’rythin’ goes right—I’ll tell yuh that much—but I don’t want none of yuh to start blah-blahin’ all over the place. You girls wanna keep a close mouth, d’yuh hear me?”
“Oh, hush up, you never give us a chance to say anythin’—you’re always gabbin’ yourself,” Mabel said, petulantly, as she went into her room.
“I’ll bet both of you get into a peck of trouble before you’re through, but it’s not my funeral,” said Blanche, in a spirit of weary indifference.
“Stop croakin’ all the time, will yuh,” answered Harry. “You talk like you was anxious f’r us to get in bad, you do.”