Durin' which I've been shooed into the parlor. Some parlor it is, too. I don't know when I've seen a room that came so near whinin' about better days gone by. Every piece of furniture, from the threadbare sofa to the rickety center table, seems kind of sad and sobby.
Nothing old-timey about this young female that's studyin' out Mrs. Bagstock's letter. Barrin' the floppy cap, she's costumed zippy enough in what I should judge was a last fall's tango dress. As she reads she yanks gum industrious.
"Say," she breaks out, "this is all Dutch to me. Who's bein' called down, anyway?"
"We are," says I. "The Corrugated Trust. I'm private sec. there. I've come around to show Mrs. Bagstock where she's sized us up wrong, and if I could have five minutes' talk with her—"
"Well, you can't, that's all," says the young lady. "So speed up and tell it to me."
Course, I wasn't doin' that. We holds quite a debate on the subject without my scorin' any points at all. She tells me how she's a niece by marriage of Mrs. Bagstock, and the unregrettin' widow of the late Dick McCloud, who up to a year ago was the only survivin' relative of his dear aunt.
"And he wasn't much good at that, if I do say it," announces Tessie, snappin' her black eyes. "I don't deny he had me buffaloed for a while there, throwin' the bull about his rich aunt that was goin' to leave him a fortune. Huh! This is the fortune—this old furnished-room joint that's mortgaged up to the eaves and ain't had a roomer in three months. Hot fortune, ain't it? And here I am stranded with a batty old dame, two blocks below Christopher."
"Waitin' to inherit?" I asks innocent.
"Why not?" says Tessie. "I stood for Dick McCloud 'most three years. That ought to call for some pension, hadn't it? I don't mind sayin', too, it ain't one long May-day festival, this bein' buried alive with Aunt Nutty."
"Meanin' Mrs. Bagstock?" says I.