Lee Theresa, taking the day off with a headache, answered the bell, and ejaculated: "Well! So it's you, is it?"
"I guess it is."
"What, are you back so soon? Why, you ain't been gone more than a month and a half, have you?"
Beware, daughter of Southern pride! The little Yankee is regarding your full-blown curves and empty eyes with rebellion, though he says, ever so meekly: "Yes, I guess it is about that, Miss Theresa."
"Well, I just knew you couldn't stand it away from us. I suppose you'll want your room back. Ma, here's Mr. Wrenn back again--Mr. Wrenn! Ma!"
"Oh-h-h-h!" sounded Goaty Zapp's voice, in impish disdain, below. "Mr. Wrenn's back. Hee, hee! Couldn't stand it. Ain't that like a Yankee!"
A slap, a wail, then Mrs. Zapp's elephantine slowness on the stairs from the basement. She appeared, buttoning her collar, smiling almost pleasantly, for she disliked Mr. Wrenn less than she did any other of her lodgers.
"Back already, Mist' Wrenn? Ah declare, Ah was saying to Lee Theresa just yest'day, Ah just knew you'd be wishing you was back with us. Won't you come in?"
He edged into the parlor with, "How is the sciatica, Mrs. Zapp?"
"Ah ain't feeling right smart."
"My room occupied yet?"
He was surveying the airless parlor rather heavily, and his curt manner was not pleasing to the head of the house of Zapp, who remarked, funereally: "It ain't taken just now, Mist' Wrenn, but Ah dunno. There was a gennulman a-looking at it just yesterday, and he said he'd be permanent if he came. Ah declare, Mist' Wrenn, Ah dunno's Ah like to have my gennulmen just get up and go without giving me notice."
Lee Theresa scowled at her.
Mr. Wrenn retorted, "I did give you notice."
"Ah know, but--well, Ah reckon Ah can let you have it, but Ah'll have to have four and a half a week instead of four. Prices is all going up so, Ah declare, Ah was just saying to Lee T'resa Ah dunno what we're all going to do if the dear Lord don't look out for us. And, Mist' Wrenn, Ah dunno's Ah like to have you coming in so late nights. But Ah reckon Ah can accommodate you."
"It's a good deal of a favor, isn't it, Mrs. Zapp?"
Mr. Wrenn was dangerously polite. Let gentility look out for the sharp practices of the Yankee.
"Yes, but--"
It was our hero, our madman of the seven and seventy seas, our revolutionist friend of Istra, who leaped straight from the salt-incrusted decks of his laboring steamer to the musty parlor and declared, quietly but unmovably-practically unmovably--"Well, then, I guess I'd better not take it at all."