"I'm a agnostic by trade," I says. I spotted that there word in a religious book one time, and that's the first chancet I ever has to try it on any one.
You can't never tell what them reg'lar sockdologers is going to do till you tries them.
"I see," says she. But I seen she didn't see.
And I didn't help her none. She would of ruther died than to let on she didn't see. The Irish is like that. Purty soon she says:
"Ain't that the dangerous kind o' work, though!""It is," I says. And says nothing further.
She sets down and folds her arms, like she was thinking of it, watching my hands closet all the time I was eating, like she's looking fur scars where something slipped when I done that agnostic work.
Purty soon she says:
"Me brother Michael was kilt at it in the old country. He was the most vinturesome lad of thim all!""Did it fly up and hit him?" I asts her. I was wondering w'ether she is making fun of me or am I making fun of her. Them Irish is like that, you can never tell which.
"No," says she, "he fell off of it. And I'm think-ing you don't know what it is yourself." And the next thing I know I'm eased out o' the back door and she's grinning at me scornful through the crack of it.
So I was walking slow around toward the front of the house thinking how the Irish was a great nation, and what shall I do now, anyhow? And I says to myself: "Danny, you was a fool to let that circus walk off and leave you asleep in this here town with nothing over you but a barbed wire fence this morning. Fur what ARE you going to do next? First thing you know, you WILL be a reg'lar tramp, which some folks can't be made to see you ain't now." And jest when I was thinking that, a feller comes down the front steps of that house on the jump and nabs me by the coat collar.
"Did you come out of this house?" he asts.
"I did," I says, wondering what next.
"Back in you go, then," he says, marching me forward toward them front steps, "they've got smallpox in there."I like to of jumped loose when he says that.
"Smallpox ain't no inducement to me, mister,"I tells him. But he twisted my coat collar tight and dug his thumbs into my neck, all the time helping me onward with his knee from behind, and I seen they wasn't no use pulling back. Icould probable of licked that man, but they's no system in mixing up with them well-dressed men in towns where they think you are a tramp. The judge will give you the worst of it.
He rung the door bell and the girl that opened the door she looked kind o' surprised when she seen me, and in we went.
"Tell Professor Booth that Doctor Wilkins wants to see him again," says the man a-holt o' me, not letting loose none. And we says nothing further till the perfessor comes, which he does, slow and absent-minded. When he seen me he took off his glasses so's he could see me better, and he says:
"What is that you have there, Doctor Wilkins?""A guest for you," says Doctor Wilkins, grinning all over hisself. "I found him leaving your house.
And you being under quarantine, and me being secretary to the board of health, and the city pest-house being crowded too full already, I'll have to ask you to keep him here till we get Miss Margery onto her feet again," he says. Or they was words to that effect, as the lawyers asts you.
"Dear me," says Perfesser Booth, kind o' help-less like. And he comes over closet to me and looks me all over like I was one of them amphimissourian lizards in a free museum. And then he goes to the foot of the stairs and sings out in a voice that was so bleached-out and flat-chested it would of looked jest like him himself if you could of saw it--"Estelle," he sings out, "oh, Estelle!"
Estelle, she come down stairs looking like she was the perfessor's big brother. I found out later she was his old maid sister. She wasn't no spring chicken, Estelle wasn't, and they was a continuous grin on her face. I figgered it must of froze there years and years ago. They was a kid about ten or eleven years old come along down with her, that had hair down to its shoulders and didn't look like it knowed whether it was a girl or a boy.
Miss Estelle, she looks me over in a way that makes me shiver, while the doctor and the perfessor jaws about whose fault it is the smallpox sign ain't been hung out. And when she was done listening she says to the perfessor: "You had better go back to your laboratory." And the perfessor he went along out, and the doctor with him.
"What are you going to do with him, Aunt Estelle?" the kid asts her.
"What would YOU suggest, William, Dear?" asts his aunt. I ain't feeling very comfortable, and Iwas getting all ready jest to natcherally bolt out the front door now the doctor was gone. Then Ithinks it mightn't be no bad place to stay in fur a couple o' days, even risking the smallpox. Fur I had riccolected I couldn't ketch it nohow, having been vaccinated a few months before in Terry Hutt by compulsive medical advice, me being fur a while doing some work on the city pavements through a mistake about me in the police court.
William Dear looks at me like it was the day of judgment and his job was to keep the fatted calves separate from the goats and prodigals, and he says:
"If I were you, Aunt Estelle, the first thing would be to get his hair cut and his face washed and then get him some clothes.""William Dear is my friend," thinks I.
