“Seven,” panted the gardener, who had kept careful count.
“Tree, please sah,” corrected the lady.
“Me Dacia Maree,” explained the victim of maternal pride.
“Have you a husband?” continued the gardener.
“O la, no please sah.”
“A widow?” he suggested.
Mrs. Morra shrieked with laughter.
“Nebber had no man mo’ dan tree monts,” she said. “Dacia Maree’s fader—he on’y stop a week. Benjum’s dad bin in gaol two yahs. Blanche Rosabel—her fader was a brown man, her grand-dad was a buckra.”
The gardener blushed into his notebook.
The police had certified that the family’s means of subsistence had been swept away by the earthquake, and the gardener, by one glance into an unsavoury hut, satisfied himself that no luxuries had been saved from the wreck. He therefore noted the case as needy, and asked his way to Daddy Hamilton.