But “Miss Atalanty,” curling a quarter of an inch of scarlet lip above the edge of her novel, here “allowed” that if his advice or the filly had to be “took,” she didn't know which was worse.
“I wonder ye kin talk to sech peartness, Mr. Hopper,” said Mrs. Foster severely; “she ain't got eyes nor senses for anythin' but that book.”
“Talkin' o' what's to be 'took,'” put in the diplomatic neighbor, “you bet it ain't that Mexican leader! No, sir! he's been 'stopped' before this--and then got clean away all the same! One o' them detectives got him once and disarmed him--but he managed to give them the slip, after all. Why, he's that full o' shifts and disguises thar ain't no spottin' him. He walked right under the constable's nose oncet, and took a drink with the sheriff that was arter him--and the blamed fool never knew it. He kin change even the color of his hair quick as winkin'.”
“Is he a real Mexican,--a regular Greaser?” asked the paternal Foster. “Cos I never heard that they wuz smart.”
“No! They say he comes o' old Spanish stock, a bad egg they threw outer the nest, I reckon,” put in Hopper eagerly, seeing a strange animated interest dilating Lanty's eyes, and hoping to share in it; “but he's reg'lar high-toned, you bet! Why, I knew a man who seed him in his own camp--prinked out in a velvet jacket and silk sash, with gold chains and buttons down his wide pants and a dagger stuck in his sash, with a handle just blazin' with jew'ls. Yes! Miss Atalanty, they say that one stone at the top--a green stone, what they call an 'em'ral'--was worth the price o' a 'Frisco house-lot. True ez you live! Eh--what's up now?”
Lanty's book had fallen on the floor as she was rising to her feet with a white face, still more strange and distorted in an affected yawn behind her little hand. “Yer makin' me that sick and nervous with yer fool yarns,” she said hysterically, “that I'm goin' to get a little fresh air. It's just stifling here with lies and terbacker!” With another high laugh, she brushed past him into the kitchen, opened the door, and then paused, and, turning, ran rapidly up to her bedroom. Here she locked herself in, tore open the bosom of her dress, plucked out the dagger, threw it on the bed, where the green stone gleamed for an instant in the candlelight, and then dropped on her knees beside the bed with her whirling head buried in her cold red hands.