Somehow, I don’t catch it all, she puts over her ideas so fast; but I gather that she’d like to have me come up prompt with my little old two-fifty so she can get busy givin’ out the contracts. Seein’ me still hangin’ back, though, she’s willin’ to spend a few minutes more in describin’ some of the worst cases, which she proceeds to do.
“We estimate,” says Miss Ann as a final clincher, “that the average cost is about fifty dollars per patient. Now,” and she sticks the subscription list into my fist, “here is an opportunity! Do you wish to save five human lives?”
Ever had it thrown into you like that? The sensation is a good deal like bein’ tied to a post and havin’ your pockets frisked by a holdup gang. Anyway, that’s the way I felt, and then the next minute I’m ashamed of havin’ any such feelings at all; for there’s no denyin’ that dozens of cases like she mentions can be dug up in any crowded block. Seems kind of inhuman, too, not to want chip in and help save ’em. And yet there I was gettin’ grouchy over it, without knowin’ why!
“Well,” says I, squirmin’ in the chair, “I’d like to save five hundred, if I could. How many do you say you’re going to take care of up at this new place?”
“Sixty,” says she. “I select the most pitiful cases. I am taking some things to one of them now. I wish you could see the awful misery in that home! I could take you down there, you know, and show you what a squalid existence they lead, these Tiscotts.”
“Tiscotts!” says I, prickin’ up my ears. “What Tiscotts? What’s his first name?”
“I never heard the husband mentioned,” says Miss Ann. “I doubt if there is one. The woman’s name, I think, is Mrs. Anthony Tiscott. Of course, unless you are really interested——”
“I am,” says I. “I’m ready to go when you are.”
That seems to jar Miss Colliver some, and she tries a little shifty sidestepping; but I puts it up to her as flat as she had handed it to me about savin’ the five lives. It was either make good or welsh, and she comes to the scratch cheerful.
“Very well, then,” says she, “we will drive down there at once.”