But I've been up against this embargo game before, you know; so the first chance I gets I slips uptown to do a little scoutin' at close range. It's an apartment hotel this time, and I hangs around the entrance, inspectin' the bay trees out front for half an hour, before I can work up the nerve to make the Brodie break. Fin'lly I marches in bold and calls for Aunty herself.
"Is she in, Cephas?" says I to the brunette Jamaican in the olive-green liv'ry who juggles the elevator.
"I don't rightly know, Suh," says he; "but you can send up a call, Suh, from the desk there, and——"
"Ah, let's not disturb the operator," says I. "Give a guess."
"I'm thinking she'll be taking her drive, Suh," says Cephas, blinkin' stupid.
"Then I'll have to go up and wait," says I. "She'd be mighty sore on us both if she missed me. Up, Cephas!"
"Yes, Suh," says he, pullin' the lever.
I should have known, though, from one look at that to-let expression of his, that his ideas on any subject would be vague. And this was a bum hunch on Aunty. Out? Why, she was propped up in an easy-chair with a sprained ankle, and had been for three days! And you should have seen the tight-lipped, welcome-to-our-grand-jury-room smile that she greets me with.
"Humph!" she says. "You! Well, young man, what is your excuse this time?"
I grins sheepish and shuffles my feet. "Same old excuse," says I.