“I’ve flew the coop on him forever!” said Clara, with her broad, amiable, unintelligent smile. “I got a little hall room for myself, and—me go back to him? Oh, my! is that a step on the stairs? I wouldn’t wish it, not for the world, for him to find me here! I never want to see the face of him again!” Clara looked around for a place to hide; ran to the door of the front room, and, with her hand on the knob, stood listening.
“’Tain’t him! It’s someone going upstairs,” she said, smiling her relief. “I’ll never go back to him.”
A week later. Clara again. And Clara was out of breath.
“Oh, Mrs. McGibney, has the man come yet? I thought I saw him over on Ninth Avenue, and I run clear around the block for fear he’d be after me and track me here. I was just buying a bit of furniture and going to start rooms for myself, when I get a few bits together. And is it too much to ask you to store them for me till I get rooms, Mrs. McGibney?”
“We’re only too glad—” began Mrs. McGibney.
“Oh, on your life, don’t stir! It’s him! He mustn’t know where I am, or he might try to get me back! I don’t never want to see him again!” whispered Clara. “On your life, not giving no orders, don’t stir, or he’ll know you’re in and see me here.”
There was a rap on the door.
“Oh, my! Look out—would he hear us?”
Out in the hall:
“McGibney! Anyone know where McGibney lives?”