"What do you want?" asked Lapham.
"What do I want? What do you s'pose I want? I want the money to pay my month's rent; there ain't a bite to eat in the house; and I want some money to market."
Lapham bent a frown on the woman, under which she shrank back a step. "You've taken the wrong way to get it. Clear out!"
"I WON'T clear out!" said the woman, beginning to whimper.
"Corey!" said Lapham, in the peremptory voice of a master,--he had seemed so indifferent to Corey's presence that the young man thought he must have forgotten he was there,--"Is Dennis anywhere round?"
"Yissor," said Dennis, answering for himself from the head of the stairs, and appearing in the ware-room.
Lapham spoke to the woman again. "Do you want I should call a hack, or do you want I should call an officer?"
The woman began to cry into an end of her shawl. "I don't know what we're goin' to do."
"You're going to clear out," said Lapham. "Call a hack, Dennis. If you ever come here again, I'll have you arrested. Mind that! Zerrilla, I shall want you early to-morrow morning."
"Yes, sir," said the girl meekly; she and her mother shrank out after the porter.