“Eh?” says I, gaspin’ some; for it ain’t often I’m elected to things.
“You will have the privilege of voting for board members and of recommending two applicants a year. A life membership is two hundred and fifty dollars.”
“You mean I get two-fifty,” says I, “for—for just——”
Then I came to. And, say, did you ever know such a bonehead? Honest, though, from all I’d heard of the way she spreads her money around, and the patronizin’ style she has of puttin’ this proposition up to me, I couldn’t tell for a minute how she meant it. And when I suddenly surrounds the idea that it’s me gives up the two-fifty, I’m so fussed that I drops back into the chair and begins to hunt through the desk for my checkbook. And then I feels myself growin’ a little warm behind the ears.
“So you just put me down offhand for two hundred and fifty, did you?” says I.
“If you wish,” says she, “you may take out a life certificate for each member of your family. Several have done that. Let me show you my list of subscribers. See, here are some of the prominent merchants and manufacturing firms. I haven’t begun on the brokers and bankers yet; but you will be in good company.”
“Ye-e-es?” says I, runnin’ my eye over the firm names. “But I don’t know much about this scheme of yours, Miss Colliver.”
“Why, it is for working girls,” says she, “who are victims of the white plague. We take them up to Piny Crest and cure them.”
“Of working?” says I.
“Of the plague,” says she. “It is going to be the grandest thing I’ve done yet. And I have the names of such a lot of the most interesting cases; poor creatures, you know, who are suffering in the most wretched quarters. I do hope they will last until the station is finished. It means finding a new lot, if they don’t, and the public organizations are becoming so active in that sort of thing, don’t you see?”