"Me aunt," prompted Katie.
"Your aunt," frowned Mr. Porter to his desk, "had not your aunt been so disinclined to recover."
"She was gettin' absent treatment from a bad doctor."
"I know nothing of that——"
"I think meself it was Malicious Animal Magnetism."
"Please do not interrupt," said Mr. Porter, shaking his whiskers at the desk. "I say that the previous case was not adjusted, though it might have been, if your mother had not remained so ill."
"Me aunt."
"Your aunt, if you prefer it. Now comes this second case, and really, I am curious to know whether you can suggest anything that will make me regard it with the smallest degree of lenience."
He looked again at the desk, as if the desk were the case he had referred to, but neither the desk nor Katie answered.
"If you cannot," he at last concluded, "I see no course but one for me to pursue."