"Here, fetch this down to the house," she demanded imperiously. "What's the good of my finding you here in Goldite if you don't do nothing for your country?"
Van shouldered the sack.
"What are you doing here anyhow?" said he, "—up before breakfast and busy as a hen scratching for one chicken."
"Come on," she answered, starting briskly towards a new white building, off the main thoroughfare, eastward. "I live here—start my boarding-house today. I'm going to get rich. Every room's furnished and every bed wanted as fast as I can make 'em up. Have you had your breakfast?"
"Say, you're my Indian," answered Van. "I've got you two customers already. You've got to take them in and give them your best if you turn someone else inside out to do it."
Mrs. Dick paused suddenly.
"Bronson Van Buren! You're stuck on some woman at last!"
"At last?" said Van. "Haven't I always been stuck after you?"
Mrs. Dick resumed her brisk locomotion.
"Snakes alive!" she concluded explosively. "She's respectable, of course? But you said two. Now see here, Van, no Mormon games with me!"