"Now take a breath," he said, "and listen. Do we understand you to say that Algy has gone to your boarding-house and taken a job as cook?"
"He has," said Mrs. Dick, "but I've named him Charlie."
"That'll turn his stomick," ventured Gettysburg gravely. "He was proud of 'Algy.'"
"He certainly must be desperate," added Van. "I don't quite savvy how it happened."
"Oh, you don't?" said little Mrs. Dick. "Well, I do. He come down there and says to me, says he, 'We're broke, Van and us,' he says, 'and I'll go to work and cook for you if you'll board all the family,' or words to that effect, says he, 'and give Van twenty dollars a month, salary,' he says, and I says I'll do it, quicker than scat. And that's all there is to say, and if Charlie wasn't a Chinaman I'd kiss him in the bargain!" With a quick, impatient gesture she made a daub at her eye and flecked away a jewel.
Van hauled at his collar, which was loose enough around his neck.
"Say, boys," he said, "think of Algy, being kissed in the bargain. I always thought he got his face at a bargain counter."
"That's all right, Bronson Van Buren!" answered Mrs. Dick indignantly, "but I never come that near to kissin' you!"
Van suddenly swooped down upon her, picked her up bodily, and kissed her on the cheek. Then he placed her again on the box.
"Why didn't you say what you wanted, earlier?" he said. "Now, don't talk back. I want you to harken intently. I'm perfectly willing that Algy should waste his sweetness on the desert air of your boarding-house, if it pleases you and him. I'm willing these old ring-tailed galoots should continue to eat his fascinating poisons, and I certainly hope he'll draw his monthly wage, but I'm going to be too busy to board in any one place, and Algy's salary would make a load I must certainly decline to carry."