At nine o'clock there drew up outside the coolie-faced house one of
those small tin motor-cars which are tiny mile-scavengers to the country
road. With a thridding of engine and a play of lamps which turned green
landscape, gray, it drew up short, a rattling at the screen door
following almost immediately.
"Doctor, that you? O my God! Doctor, it's too late! It's all over,
Doctor--Doctor--it's all over!" Trembling in a frenzy of haste, Miss
Hoag drew back the door, the room behind her flickering with shadows
from an uneven wick.
"You're the Fat, ain't you? The one that's keeping him?"
"What--what--"
"So you're the meal-ticket! Say, leave it to Will, Leave it to that boy
not to get lost in this world. Ain't it like him to the T to pick a
good-natured Fat?"
There entered into Miss Hoag's front room Miss Sidonia Sabrina, of the
Flying-Fish Troupe, World's Aeronaut Trapeze Wonder, gloved and
ringleted, beaded of eyelash and pink of ear-lobe, the teeth somewhat
crookedly, but pearlily white because the lips were so red, the parasol
long and impudently parrot-handled, gilt mesh bag clanking against a
cluster of sister baubles.
"If it ain't Will to the T! Pickin' hisself a Fat to sponge on.
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