to speak, that you wouldn't be bothered one way or another, and so ye
hadn't any call to know that there was folks here"--
"Oh, I see," interrupted Breeze cheerfully; "you're speaking of the
family next door--the landlord's new tenants."
"They ain't exactly THAT," said Roberts, still with embarrassment. "The
fact is--ye see--the thing points THIS way: they ain't no right to be
here, and it's as much as my place is worth if it leaks out that they
are."
Mr. Breeze suspended his collar-buttoning, and stared at Roberts.
"You see, sir, they're mighty poor, and they've nowhere else to go--and
I reckoned to take 'em in here for a spell and say nothing about it."
"But the landlord wouldn't object, surely? I'll speak to him myself,"
said Breeze impulsively.
"Oh, no; don't!" said Roberts in alarm; "he wouldn't like it. You see,
Mr. Breeze, it's just this way: the mother, she's a born lady, and did
my old woman a good turn in old times when the family was rich; but now
she's obliged--just to support herself, you know--to take up with what
she gets, and she acts in the bally in the theatre, you see, and hez
to come in late o' nights. In them cheap boarding-houses, you know, the
folks looks down upon her for that, and won't hev her, and in the cheap
hotels the men are--you know--a darned sight wuss, and that's how I took
her and her kids in here, where no one knows 'em."
"I see," nodded the editor sympathetically; "and very good it was of
you, my man."
Roberts looked still more confused, and stammered with a forced laugh,
"And--so--I'm just keeping her on here, unbeknownst, until her husband
gets"--He stopped suddenly.
"So she has a husband living, then?" said Breeze in surprise.
"In the mines, yes--in the mines!" repeated Roberts with a monotonous
deliberation quite distinct from his previous hesitation, "and she's
only waitin' until he gets money enough--to--to take her away." He
stopped and breathed hard.
"But couldn't you--couldn't WE--get her some more furniture? There's
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