“Oh,” said Starwick gravely, but there was now lurking in his voice an indefinable drollery of humour. “And does she say nice things about them?” He looked out towards his guest with a grave face, but a sly burble in his voice now escaped him and broke out in an infectious chuckling laugh. “Or is she—” for a moment he was silent, trembling a little with secret merriment, and his pleasant face reddened with laughter—“or is she,” he said with sly insinuation—“bitter?”
The other, somehow conquered by the sly yet broad and vulgar humour in Starwick’s tone, broke out into a loud guffaw, and said:
“God! she’s bitter—and nothing but! That’s just the word for it.”
“Has anyone escaped yet?” said Starwick slyly.
“Not a damned one of them,” the other roared. “She’s worked her way from the President and his family all the way down to the instructors. Now she’s started on the people of the town. I’ve heard about every miscarriage and every dirty pair of drawers that ever happened there. We’ve got a bet on, a friend of mine from home who’s also staying there—he’s in the Law School—whether she’s going to say anything good about anyone before the year is over.”
“And which side have you?” said Starwick.
“I say she won’t—but Billy Ingram says she will. He says that the last time she said anything good about anyone was when someone died during the influenza epidemic in 1917; and he claims she’s due again.”
“And what is the lady’s name?” said Starwick. He had now come out into the living room and was putting on his coat.
“Trotter,” the other said, feeling a strange convulsive humour swelling in him. “Mrs. Trotter.”
“What?” said Starwick, his face reddening and the sly burble appearing in his voice again. “Mrs.—who?”
“Mrs. Trotter!” the other choked, and the room rang suddenly with their wild laughter. When it had subsided, Starwick blew his nose vigorously, and his pleasant face still reddened with laughter, he asked smoothly:
“And what does Professor Trotter say while this is going on?”
“He doesn’t say anything,” the other laughed. “He can’t say anything. He just sits there and listens…. The man’s all right. Billy and I feel sorry for him. He’s got this damned old shrew of a wife who sits there talking ninety to the minute, and three of the meanest, dirtiest, noisiest little devils you ever saw falling over his feet and raising hell from morning to night, and this sloppy nigger wench they brought up with
