Green Fancy

"Why don't you see Mr. Curtis and demand--" "SEE him?" snorted Peter. "Might as well try to see Napoleon Bonyparte. Didn't you know he was a sick man?"

"Certainly. But he isn't so ill that he can't attend to business, is he?"

"He sure is. Parylised, they say. He's a mighty fine man. It's awful to think of him bein' so helpless he cain't ever git out'n his cheer ag'in. Course, if he was hisself he wouldn't think o' lettin' me out. But bein' sick-like, he jest don't give a durn about anything. So that's how this new sec'etary gets in his fine work on me."

"What has Mr. Loeb against you, if I may ask?"

"Well, it's like this. I ain't in the habit o' bein' ordered aroun' as if I was jest nobody at all, so when he starts in to cuss me about somethin' a week or so ago, I ups and tells him I'll smash his head if he don't take it back. He takes it back all right, but the first thing I know I get a call-down from Mrs. Collier. She's Mr. Curtis's sister, you know. Course I couldn't tell her what I told the sheeny, seein' as she's a female, so I took it like a lamb. Then they gits a feller up here to wash the car. My gosh, mister, the durned ole rattle-trap ain't wuth a bucket o' water all told. You could wash from now till next Christmas an' she wouldn't look any cleaner'n she does right now. So I sends word in to Mr. Curtis that if she has to be washed, I'll wash her. I don't want no dago splashin' water all over the barn floor an' drawin' pay fer doin' it. Then's when I hears about the new car. Mr. Loeb comes out an' asts me if I ever drove a Packard twin-six. I says no I ain't, an' he says it's too bad. He asts the dago if he's ever drove one and the dago lies like thunder. He says he's handled every kind of a Packard known to science, er somethin' like that. I cain't understand half the durn fool says. Next day Mrs. Collier sends fer me an' I go in. She says she guesses she'll try the new washer on the Packard when it comes, an' if I keer to stay on as washer in his place she'll be glad to have me. I says I'd like to have a word with Mr. Curtis, if she don't mind, an' she says Mr. Curtis ain't able to see no one. So I guess I'm goin' to be let out. Not as I keer very much, 'cept I hate to leave Mr. Curtis in the lurch. He was mighty good to me up to the time he got bed-ridden."