"Riddy an' I done the locking, me well knowing Mis' Holcomb couldn't give a false alarm no more than a map could.
"'What is it?' we says, pressing Mis' Holcomb to speak, that couldn't even breathe.
"'Oh, ladies,' says Mis' Holcomb, 'they've rejoined us, or whatever it is they do. I mean they're going to rejoin us from gettin' out to-night's paper. The sheriff or the coroner or whoever it is they have, is comin' with injunctions—is that like handcuffs, do you know? An' it's Rob Henney's doin'. Eppleby told me. An' I run down the alley an' beat 'em to it. They're most here. Let's us slap into print what's wrote an' be ready with the papers the livin' minute we can.'
"Mis' Sykes had shoved her green shade onto the back of her head, and her crimping pins was all showing forth.
"'What good'll it do us to get the paper out?' says she, in a numb voice. 'We can't distribute 'em around to no one with the sheriff to the front door with them things to put on us.'
"Then Mis' Holcomb smiled, with her eyes shut, where she sat, breathing so hard it showed through.
"'I come in the coal door, at the alley,' s'she. 'They'll never think o' that. Besides, the crowd'll be in front an' the carrier boys too, an' they'll want to show off out there. An' Eppleby knows—he told me to come in that way—an' he'll keep 'em interested out in front. Le's us each take the papers, an' out the coal door, an' distribute 'em around, ourselves, without the boys, an' collect in the money same time.'
"And that was how we done. For when they come to the door and found it locked, they pounded a little to show who was who and who wan't and then they waited out there calm enough, thinking to stop us when the papers come down would be plenty time. They waited out there, calm and sure, while upstairs Bedlam went on, but noiseless. And after us ladies was done with our part, we sat huddled up in the office, soothing Mis' Sturgis and each other.
"'In one sentence,' Mis' Holcomb says, 'Eppleby says Rob Henney was going to put injunctions on us. An' in the next he says he was goin' to serve 'em. What did he mean by that, do you s'pose?'
"'I donno what he meant,' says Mis' Toplady, 'but I wouldn't have anything to do with anything Rob Henney served.'