My hair's falling from its
having to stand up on end half the time."
She leaned over and put her cigarette on the back of my celluloid
mirror, and then suddenly she threw back her head and laughed.
"Minnie!" she said, between fits, "Minnie! As long as I live I'll never
forget that wretched boy's face! And the sand boxes! And the blankets
over the windows! And the tarpaulin over the rafters! And Mr. Van
Alstyne sitting on the lawnmower! I'd rather have had my minute in that
doorway than fifty thousand dollars!"
"If you had had to carry out all those things--" I began, but she
checked me.
"Listen!" she said. "Somebody with brains has got to take you young
people in hand. You're not able to look after yourselves. I'm fond of
Alan Pierce, for one thing, and I don't care to see a sanatorium that
might have been the child of my solicitude kidnaped and reared as a
summer hotel by Papa Thoburn. A good fat man is very, very good, Minnie,
but when he is bad he is horrid."
"It's too late," I objected feebly. "He can't get it now."
"Can't he!" She got up and yawned, stretching. "Well, I'll lay you
ten to one that if we don't get busy he'll have the house empty in
thirty-six hours, and a bill of sale on it in as many days."
The celluloid mirror blazed up at that minute, and she poured the
contents of my water-pitcher over the dresser. For the next hour, while
I was emptying water out of the bureau drawers and hanging up my clothes
to dry, she told me what she knew of Thoburn's scheme, and it turned me
cold.
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