"
"Indeed, Mrs. Dr. dear, you are quite right. I did not think of it
because I was quite past thinking rationally. I was just clean mad. Come
in the house and I will tell you all about it."
Susan picked up her pot and marched into the kitchen, still trembling
with wrathful excitement. She set her pot on the stove with a vicious
thud. "Wait a moment until I open all the windows to air this kitchen
well, Mrs. Dr. dear. There, that is better. And I must wash my hands,
too, because I shook hands with Whiskers-on-the-moon when he came in--
not that I wanted to, but when he stuck out his fat, oily hand I did not
know just what else to do at the moment. I had just finished my
afternoon cleaning and thanks be, everything was shining and spotless;
and thought I 'now that dye is boiling and I will get my rug rags and
have them nicely out of the way before supper.'
"Just then a shadow fell over the floor and looking up I saw
Whiskers-on-the-moon, standing in the doorway, dressed up and looking as
if he had just been starched and ironed. I shook hands with him, as
aforesaid, Mrs. Dr. dear, and told him you and the doctor were both
away. But he said,
"I have come to see you, Miss Baker.'
"I asked him to sit down, for the sake of my own manners, and then I
stood there right in the middle of the floor and gazed at him as
contemptuously as I could. In spite of his brazen assurance this seemed
to rattle him a little; but he began trying to look sentimental at me
out of his little piggy eyes, and all at once an awful suspicion flashed
into my mind.
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