Page:Arthur Stringer - The Door of Dread.djvu/263

 wit' a pole-cat like yuh, it'd sure make him seasick!"

Shindler's scrutiny of her impassive face was interrupted by the boy with the glass.

"So you're ashamed o' me?" he pensively complained.

"I'm ashamed o' myself," solemnly acknowledged Sadie Wimpel. "I'm so ashamed o' myself that I'm goin' to grubstake yuh to a cabin passage over to Cherbourg!"

Shindler stood in the middle of the room, with the glass in his hand. "Ain't you kind of knockin' your own home-circle?" he inquired. But behind that velvety mask, Sadie knew, there was the fire of a rage that burned all the fiercer for being self-consuming.

"I ain't knockin' yuh—nuttin could knock yuh! I'm blamin' myself for ever bein' so blind and foolish as to hitch up wit' a cur like yuh. I didn't know much then, but I should've known better'n that. I didn't even know it was Schmielz and yuh that killed Padolsky over in Odessa the same as Keudell killed Eichendorff! I didn't—"

"Cut that out!" Shindler suddenly barked. His voice was as sharp as a pup's yelp.