Yes, he admits that he can; but he don't. And I will say for him that he states his case smooth enough, smilin' that catchy smile of his, and tappin' me friendly on the knee. But when he's all through it amounts to this: He needs the loan of a couple of hundred cash the worst way, and he wants to be put next to a few plutes that are in the market for new trolley franchises. If I can boost him along that way, it'll relieve his mind so much that he'll be in just the right mood to go into my personal hist'ry as deep as I care to dip.
"Gee!" says I. "But this raisin' a fam'ly tree comes high, don't it? Besides, I'd have to get Mother Leary's O. K. on you first, you know."
"Naturally," says he. "And any time within the next day or so will answer. Suppose I drop around again, or look you up at your quarters?"
"Better make it at the house," says I. "Here's the street number. Some evenin' after seven-thirty. I—I'll be thinkin' things over."
And as I watches him swing jaunty through the door I remarks under my breath to nobody in partic'lar: "Uncle Bill, eh? My Uncle Bill! Well, well!"
You can be sure too that my first move is to sound Mother Leary. She says he's the one, all right, and I gathers that she gave him the tongue-lashin' she'd been savin' up all these years. But I don't stop for details. If I've really had an uncle wished on me, it's up to me to make the best of it, or find out the worst. But somehow I ain't so chesty about havin' dug up a relation. I don't brag about it to Martha when I go home. In fact, Martha has fam'ly troubles of her own about now, you remember. I finds her weepy-eyed and solemn.
"They've been gone more than a week," says she, "Zenobia and that reckless Kyrle Ballard. Pretty soon they will be coming back, and then——"
"Well, what then?" says I.
"I've been packing up to-day," says she, swabbin' off a stray tear from the side of her nose. "I have engaged rooms at the Lady Louise. I suppose you will be leaving too."
"Me?" says I.