“Hocked,” wept that sorry and shrunken old negress. “Gossome cheap trash in deir place to fool my young mist'ess. Her sight ain' good no mo'.”
“And the money went for food,” I suggested.
“Some. Rest I put on a dream figgah.”
“Policy,” explained the Little Red Doctor, who is wise in the ways of the world. “She dreamed a number and put her money on it in a policy shop. And it didn't come out. They never do.”
“Ef it had,” said Old Sally eagerly, “I'd'a' had money to pay dat eighteen hund'ed an' fo'ty-five dollahs an' fifty cents debt, an' plenty mo' besides.” Obviously she had been wearing that hair-shirt debt next to her soul's skin. “But I must'a' disremembered my dream figgah.”
“Very likely,” agreed the Little Red Doctor gravely. “Come now, Sally; think. Isn't there anything you could sell out of the house?”
The old face began to work again. “My young mist'ess she'll like to skin me if I tell,” she whimpered.
“I'll cross your eyes like Schepstein's, if you don't,” threatened the Little Red Doctor savagely.
A deep breath signified the termination of her struggle between two fears.
“Tazmun,” she enunciated in a mystical voice.