"Oh, typewriting!" says she. "But I suppose she was very skillful at it?"
"Oh, she was a bird!" says I.
See what was happenin'? I was bein' pumped. It was more'n that too. Everything I knew about Mildred, and a lot I guessed at, was emptied out of me like she was usin' one of these vacuum cleaners on my head. When I gets to telling about the place out West where Mildred lived before she and her maw hit New York, Aunt Laura jumps up.
"Oh, I know some people who lived there once," says she. "I wonder if any of them knew Miss Morgan?"
With that she picks up the desk 'phone and gives a call. Did they know any Miss Morgans out there? Yes, Mildred Morgan. Really! A brother too? How interesting! Who was he, and what was he doing last? What! In the State penitentiary! That was enough for Aunt Laura. She hangs up the receiver and says to me:
"Boy, when you get back to the office tell Mr. Robert I want to see him. Come, you'd better be going now."
It was a case of "Here's your hat—what's your hurry!"
"Say," says I, "don't you go to swallowin' any tale about the Lady Mildred havin' a brother that's a crook. There's lots of Morgans besides her and J. P."
But all Aunt Laura does is hold the door open for me; so I beats it, feelin' about as chipper as though I'd been turnin' State's evidence. The more I thinks of it, the cheaper I feels. Here I'd been playin' myself for Mr. Foxy Cute, and had let an old lemon squeezer like Aunt Laura wring me dry!
Just what she's got up her sleeve about the penitentiary business, I didn't know; but I wa'n't long in findin' out. Next day there was all kinds of a row. Aunt Laura has looked up the invitation list for the weddin', and, sure enough, among the also rans was a Mr. William Morgan, with a State penitentiary address. With that, and what she'd heard over the 'phone, Aunt Laura makes out a strong case. Was she goin' to stand by and see her only nephew marry into a family of jailbirds? Not if she could help it! So she calls in Mr. Robert and puts the layout before him.