"Who are you, and what is the meaning of your presence on these premises?"
"This house is mine--mine! It's all of it mine! And who are you, that you ask such a question--of a lady?"
She crossed her hands on her breast with an assumption of dignity which, in a woman of her figure and scarecrow-like appearance, was sufficiently ludicrous. Graham eyed her as if subjecting her to a mental appraisement. Then he turned to the man.
"And pray, sir, what explanation have you to offer of the felony you are committing?"
This man was a little, undergrown fellow, with sharp hatchet-shaped features, and bent and shrunken figure. He had on an old grey suit of clothes, which was three or four sizes too large for him, the trousers being turned up in a thick roll over the top of an oft-patched pair of side-spring boots. There was about him none of the assurance which marked the woman--the air of bravado which he attempted to wear fitted him as ill as his garments.
"I ain't committed no felony, not likely. She asked me to come to her house--so I come. She says to me, 'You come along o' me to my house, and I'll give you a bit of something to eat.' Now didn't you?"
"Certainly. I suppose a gentleman is allowed to visit a lady if she asks him."
The dreadful-looking woman, as she stood with her head thrown back, and her nose in the air, presented a picture of something which was meant for condescension, which was not without its pathos.
"Of course!--ain't that what I'm saying? She come here, and she took a key out of her pocket, and she put it in the keyhole, and she opened the door, all quite regular, and she says, 'This here's my house,' and she asked me to come in, so of course I come in."
"Do you mean to say that she gained entrance to this house by means of a key which she took from her pocket?"