"The rent; hadn't you better show me where he is right away?"
"Didn't I say he wasn't in?" she answered sharply.
"You did, my dear, but I'm willing to forget it. I believe that kinder answer goes in polite society when the lady of the house don't want to see anybody, and the lady what calls hopes that the lady she calls on ain't in. But it don't go with me."
"But he ain't in," the girl whined.
"Then he's out for the first time in three years," was the rejoinder, "and it's funny he'd pick rent day for a walk; him owing two months' rent at that. P'raps he left the money with you?"
"No."
"H'm. Then I'll wait till he comes back."
"But he won't be back until to-night."
"All the same to me. I can wait; that's part of my work."
She shifted ground uneasily, and finally burst out, "He's in the kitchen, Will Turnpike, and you can go in yourself. He's wild today."