Читать книгу The Man with the Wooden Spectacles - Harry Stephen Keeler - Страница 10

CHAPTER VII

A Trip to the Black Belt

Elsa, dismounting hurriedly from the South State Street car in the vicinity of Aunt Linda Cooksey’s home, knew that she was indeed in the Black Belt. For a Negro motion-picture theatre advertising a double-bill of lurid melodramas—admission 5 cents only!—vied with a dingy pawnshop in front of which flapped moth-eaten suits at $2 each. Fried-fish stands, moreover, were much in evidence—each with its two frying pans mounted on a two hole gasoline burner, the one containing the usual hamburgers and greasy intertwined onions, the other, sizzling cadaver-colored perch, and with invariably its black proprietor in a gargantuan cook’s white hat; and black tradesmen looked out of dusty, fly-specked shop windows as Elsa made her way hastily along the block between 23rd and 24th Streets.

But Elsa, now so definitely in the Black Belt, knew something even more than that she was in the Black Belt.

And with even greater assurance! Because it was based on the mathematics of “never-having-failed!” She knew, in short, that before 2 hours should elapse today, she would accident­ally meet up with somebody she had not seen—well—for an eternity! For, getting off the streetcar, she had glimpsed a white horse with two black legs. And it had never failed to be a perfect omen. One black leg—one hour. Two black legs—two hours. Quite all she wondered, at most, was just who the party would prove to be.

Not dreaming, in the least, that he would be no less than her drunkard half-cousin, Saul Moffit, only son of her half-uncle, Silas Moffit. And whom she was destined to meet—of all places!—at no less a spot than—

But now reaching a narrow dark passageway between a Negro undertaking parlor, containing a child’s casket in the window, trimmed with lacy frills, and a fruit store with sticky fruit outside, Elsa made her way back through the passage­way, the chill of which penetrated her bones even as she traversed it.

In the rear, facing a leaning unpainted cottage which, propped up firmly at one front corner with assorted bricks and stones, nevertheless tilted definitely toward the other side which rested on a huge, rusty, upturned preserving kettle, Elsa knocked at the knobless door which, thanks to its being both knobless and lockless, did not close by one full inch—and yet firmly resisted her knock.

A moment later, a black hand, evidently unwinding yards and yards of wire from a nail somewhere on the inside door casing, was visible, and presently the door, liberated, swung open. And there stood Aunt Linda Cooley who, as part of Elsa’s father’s house, had brought Elsa up from babyhood until she was 16.

A lean, rangy woman, Aunt Linda was—a “skinny ’ooman” as her own kind termed her; a woman who did not show what years might have passed over her head.

Indeed, if it had held any grey, such would have been ever occluded—thanks to the red bandanna which entirely and, always, tightly enshrouded it. From the lobes of her ears, protruding out from under the taut edge of the bandanna, hung heavily great brassy rings such as an African savage might wear, and which were in perfect keeping wig some of her neighbors’ description of her as “dat voodoo ’ooman whut lib a’hind de coffin shop.”

The sleeves of Aunt Linda’s brilliantly and gypsy-like flowered cotton dress were rolled up, and her bony forearms were sudsy—showing that she was managing, in these $4-a-month living-quarters, to scare up a few w’ite folks’ clothes to wash.

“Well, fo’ de lan’ sake, Chil’,” she was saying. “Whut you dain’ obah heah? Ah would t’ink you would be in you’ office studyin’—an’ heppin’ dem w’ite folks to git out ob trubble.”

“No, Aunt Linda—I’m over here—and in trouble myself!”

“You—in trubble, Elsa? Well, Chil’—come in—right to oncet.”

Elsa stepped in. The reception quarters of Aunt Linda’ three-room home—its combined kitchen and living room!—were graced by a rusty kitchen 4-hole range which burned coal and wood, and which, like the house itself, was propped up, at one of its corners, on a small upturned stewing kettle. A huge square of cold linoleum, with patches and holes in it, covered the floor of the room, though its gelidity was more than compensated for by the brilliant scarlet cheesecloth drapes which hung at either side of the long window gazing out on the dingy rear yard. Two chairs, one a swing-seat af­fair, and lined with carpet, the other, a huge flat-handled rocker with two different rockers glued to it, and hair leaking out of its leather bottom, beckoned to “comp’ny” as even did the gargantuan coal-oil lantern which, in lieu of electric bulb or gas chandelier, stood atop a square plaque of wood sus­pended by four wires from the crumbling ceiling.

Through a door, partly ajar, could be seen a white iron bed, with paint scaling away, but with one leg broken squarely off and the bed therefore propped up on that corner, exactly as were house and kitchen range, but this time by a wooden soap box. While through another door, also partly ajar, and leading to a room fronting doubtlessly on the rear alley, was visible the bright rim of a zinc wash-tub, giving forth from itself and through the very door aperture the smell of fresh suds—and indicating, thereby, how Aunt Linda kept the business operations of her home separate from the social ones.

“Now you set you’sef’ down, honey chil’,” Aunt Linda was saying. “And tell yo’ Auntie whut is wrong.”

Elsa did sit down, in the big chair made like a swing.

And Aunt Linda, wiping off the suds from her wrists, and hooking her front door to again, with a double turn of her wire, deposited her rangy, toothpick-like self in the capacious, flat-handled, hair-stuffed rocker facing Elsa.

“Whut wrong now, Chil’? Fo’ you mussa come to yo’ aunt fo’ adwice, didn’ you?”

“Well, Aunt Linda, I came to you because I—well—I just didn’t hardly know what to do. I never yet knew advice that you gave me on any subject—even whether you did, or whether you didn’t, know anything about the subject—to be anything but good advice, nor—Anyway—I came straight to you.”

“Da’s de baby! Now whut on yarth is wrong?”

“Well, Aunt Linda, it’s about that big piece of Northwest Side vacant property Father left me. Colby’s Nugget, as I guess even you’ve heard it called? Rather, maybe I should say, my visit to you is about my own 9/10ths ownership in the property!” She paused. “You know, of course, exactly how Father left it to me; how it comes to me only when I’m thirty, and how—”

“Ob co’se, Chil’. An’ he leab it in dat way, I t’ink, so dat it don’ leak away f’um you, w’en you is nothin’ yit but a baby, in rich libbin’, an’ dressin’, an’ traipsin’ down to Floridy, an’ sich like t’ings, an’ so’s no ol’ forchunehuntin’ count or somp’n try to mahhy you.”

“Perhaps yes,” Elsa agreed sadly.

“But ob co’se,” Aunt Linda said frowningly, “it kin leak away wid all de unpaid taxes on it—hebbins, Chil’, dey mus’ be putty much now, ain’t dey?”

“Taxes, Aunt Linda? Why—I thought you knew. Father turned in to the city a judgment he got on the condemnation of another piece he had—a judgment which he couldn’t collect from this darn city!—for taxes in advance. With the result, Aunt, that the property’s absolutely clear today, And will be—till I’m 30. Clear, that is, but for a 10th interest in itself. For you know, at least, how Uncle Silas is in on the ownership of the property by 1/10?”

“Ob co’se, Chil’. An’ he one bad man—if you axe me. Ah wouldn’ trus’ yo’ daddy’s half bruddah fudder dan Ah could th’ow dat kitchen range. Eben if Ah does do cleanin’ now an’ den fo’ him, at dat vehy flat on Clebeland Ab’noo whah he now libbin’ all alone—alone, at leas’, ’ceptin’ fo’ dat ’oomatic ol’ Zeke whut runs things dah fo’ him. He a fah wussah puhson, Elsa, dan dat no-good daughtah Bella of his’n, whut is mahhy to dat Jewishah lawyah. Fo’ Ah don’ wash clothes now an’ den fo’ Bella, lak Ah does, widout luhnin’ dat she des lazy-no-good—but dat all. W’ile yo’ half-uncle—he got snek-pizen in he’ veins!” Despite the vehemency of her dictum, Aunt Linda rocked peaceably. “Ah ain’ nebah got it cleah in mah min’, do’, Honeh, how yo’ Unc’ Silas ebah shell out fi’ thousum dollahs cash fo’ you to git th’u collige an’ lawying school, w’en he ain’t can eben leg’ly take no mohga’ge o’ nothin’ on yo’ nine-tenfs de way yo’ nine-tenfs was lef’.”

“How, Aunt Linda? Well I’ll tell you how! I simply signed what is known as an assignment of $15,000 of my receipts from the eventual sale of my 9/10ths share. Payable when I sell it.”

“Hm! Ah unnastan’ dat all right. Assignment! Mah brothah Jake long long ago—he daid now—he sign one ob dem t’ings to secuh anoddah niggah’s note—an’ de niggah, he nebah pay—an’ de Law it took fi’ dollahs a week f’m Jake’s wages fo’ 10 long months. But see heah, Chil’, you done got fi’ thousum dollahs. Whut ’ventu’lly got yo’ th’u school. Yit you sign a assignment fo’ fifteen thousum dollahs? Da’s pretty big int’rust, ain’t it?”

“Mighty big, Aunt, yes. When it’s calculated out. But my tied-up share in that tied-up property was the only thing on earth I could raise capital on.”

“Well, da’s true—an’ ain’ no ’ticklah hahm did anyway by de big ’screpancy ’tween fi’ thousum an’ fifteen thousum dollahs. Fo’ w’en you is thutty yeahs ol’ dat Colby’s Nugget is gonna be des dat ma’ much valy’ble dan is w’en you harried de money. Specially sence, as you say now, de taxes ain’ in de pictah nohow!”

“Yes, that’s quite true,” said Elsa. “For even today, Aunt, it’s conservatively appraised at $130,000—and my 9/10ths share alone, even minus the $15,000 assignment to Uncle Silas, is worth a round $100,000—plus a couple of thousand odd. But Aunt Linda—Aunt—did you ever hear of a quitclaim?”

“Whooie! Has Ah? Da’s how Ah los’ mah cottage on Thutty-Ninf St’eet. Way back, w’en you was on’y a little gal. In fac’, da’s ’zac’ly how come Ah come to wuk fo’ ye’ daddy—whut wus des lef’ widout no mama to take keer ob you. Ah done signed a claimquit fo’ a real ’state man des to hol’—an’ not to use, onless an’ maybe—an’ whut he do but ignoh de ‘onless an’ maybe’ an’ put mah claimquit on—on recohd, yes, da’s whut it wuz called—on recohd—an’ mah cottage wuz gone. Ah go to two w’ite lawyahs ’bout it. One, he say: ‘Don’ nebbah sign no claimquit—fo’ dey ain’ no goin’ behin’t o’ back ob a claimquit—dey dynamite’. An’ de oddah lawyah, he lissen to mah sto’y an’ he say: ‘Claimquits, madam, is mos’ dang’ous t’ings in all real-’state law. W’en dey is recordened—de lawyin’ is all obah! Gooday, madam.’ ”

Elsa might, under ordinary circumstances, have smiled, in spite of herself, at the picture Aunt Linda Cooksey had just drawn up: but smile, she did not, today—in the light of her own complications.

“Well, Aunt Linda,” was all she said, “claimquits—or quitclaims, as the right name is—are all of what your two lawyers told you. As I also heard, and as I also knew—some number of years back. But anyway, Aunt Linda, here’s what happened. The assignment I have to Uncle Silas was an assignment, unless—”

“On-less!” Aunt Linda stopped rocking. “Honey—you don’ mean you went an’ signed some kin’ ob a quitclaim?”

“Some kind of a one—yes, Aunt Linda! No less than a so-called contingential quitclaim, the validity of which type of quitclaim has been affirmed completely by the United States Supreme Court in the case of the Idaho and Wyoming Oil Company versus one Henry Barrows. I quitclaimed—though contingentially, understand?—all my right, title and interest in Colby’s Nugget. For Uncle Silas, Aunt, put a clause in that assignment that specif—but do you know what a clause is?”

“ ’Cose Ah do. ’Twas des account ob a clause in mah own grandfathah’s will dat Ah ’riginally ’herited dat house on Thutty-Ninf Street. So Ah knows w’ut it is. A clause, it’s a puhagraf whut state thus an’ so?”

“That’s right, Aunt Linda. Well, Uncle Silas put a clause in that assignment stating that, should I fail to acquit my first client—specifically, Aunt, my client in my first criminal case before the Bar—or get disbarred during my first three months of practice, my paper was to constitute a quitclaim complete for my share in Colby’s Nugget—in exchange for the $5,000 cash I’d already received.”

“W’y—dat ol’ rascal! He—but fus’, wut mean dis disbahhed?”

“That means, Aunt—well Aunt, you used to go with a jockey, didn’t you—in the long long ago?”

“Yes, Honey. De bes an’ de blackest one whut ebah ride de tracks. He uz so black dat he look, in a race, lak a empty suit pu’ched atop de hoss.”

“Well, disbarred, Aunt, means—in law circles—‘ruled off the turf.’ ”

“Oh—now Ah gits it cleah. Mah sweety he wuz rule’ off de tu’f mo’n once. Disbahhed means, den, dat some jedge o’ juhy o’ lawyah’s ‘sociation say you cain’t practice lawin’ fo a suttin length o’ time?”

“Exactly that.”

“Well den, w’y—but lissen, honeh, w’y you sign’ dis papah?”

“Because I didn’t read it, Aunt Linda. I was just turned 18—was badly in love—and rushing off to a dance where my first boy-friend was to be, and—”

“Oh yes—dat han’some no-good Barfin boy. Who he ebah mahhy an’way?”

“Oh—he married Grace van Sant, the winner of a beauty prize contest on the northwest side. And a really beautiful girl too.”

“Oh, he did, hey?” Aunt Linda was bridling up. “An’ Elsa Colby de mos’ beau’fullest chil’ in all Chicago, raght undah his snooty nose!”

“Heavens—no, Aunt Linda! Never beautiful, Elsa Colby—then nor now. The difference is that today I know it—but then I didn’t!”

“Well, you wrong, ’coze you hund’ed puh cent sweet. An’ clebah. An’ you—but let dat pass.” Aunt Linda surveyed Elsa solicitously. “You is got regretments, mebbe, honey—an’ hahtache, mebbe—dat you nebah get to mahhy wit’ de Barfin boy?”

“Heavens no, Aunt! For after I found that good-looking boys are interested, at best, in homely girls only be. cause—” Elsa’s face pinked almost as red as her hair. “At least,” she broke off, “when I found he was interested in me in a quite different way than I in him—” She broke off again. “Well, I ceased to care for him in a jiffy. Anyway, Aunt, that first love is always a most ridiculous thing.”

“Ain’ it de truf? De fus’ boy Ah ebah had, he—but le’s git back to dis bus’ness. So you went an’ signed dis cutth’ot papah.”

“Yes, Aunt.”

“An’ whut on yarth did dat rascal say w’en you latah discovah dat clause? As you musta did?”

“Oh he said, Aunt, that he had just put it in as a sort of ‘joke’—to teach me my first lesson in law. It was something, he said, that of course he’d never enforce.”

“Oh, he did, hey? Bet he didn’ say dat ‘fo’ any witnesses?”

“That’s right, I will admit,” Elsa conceded. “He said it only at a time and place when we were quite alone.”

Aunt Linda nodded darkly. “So he tell you he des gibbin’ you a free lesson, heh? Well, dat man don’ gib nobody nuffin’, let alone free lessons! He des tuk a gen’al chance on slippin’ in somep’n about somep’n whut mought happen—an’, again, mought not; but if’n it did, he’d hab his han’s on dat propitty. Nuffin venture—nuffin gain!”

Since Elsa discomfitedly did not reply, Aunt Linda went on.

“Well whut you do w’en you fin’ dat? Fo’ dat papah, Chil’, wuz a real-’state papah—an’ he done suttinly put it ob recohd?” Elsa nodded. “Whut you do—den? Aftah he gib you dat run-aroun’? You see a lawin’ man?”

“Yes, Aunt. The best in the city. Rutgers Allstyn. And he pointed out to me how badly I’d clouded my title to my property. If, that is, I tried to sue to set the paper aside. For don’t forget, Aunt, I was of age when I signed it—and I declared, moreover, before witnesses, that I’d read it! But Mr. Allstyn didn’t bow me out, Aunt, as your lawyers did—in the long ago. Yes—in the face of your ‘claimquit’! No. He showed me the exact way to completely circumvent Uncle Silas’ trickery—assuming it to be plainly that—and to force the paper to remain just what it was: an assignment, and nothing more.”

“He did? Whut wuz his way?”

“Well, his way, Aunt, was simply to render that dangerous clause impotent. To—to hamstring it, see?

Through my taking one case—and one case only—and one, moreover, in which it would be all set for my client to be acquitted—during my first three months of practice.

In that way I would not only completely nullify the factor involving the loss of my first case, by winning it!—but through not going before the Bar before or after—at least till my first 3 months of practice were over—I would not run any chance whatsoever of disbarment. And—but Aunt, do you follow me?”

Aunt Linda was figuring mentally, her brow creased into black wrinkles, her lips slightly moving, and counting some points of logic on several black fingers of her left hand.

“Yas, I sees de p’ints a’right. On’y, Elsa, Ah don’ see how you would gonna know, ahead ob tryin’ a case, dat you’ clien’ would be gonna win. Leas’ways, Elsa, wid no hund’ed thousum dollah assuh’ance whut you’d hafta have!”

“Well simply this, Aunt. Mr. Rutgers Allstyn’s cousin, who grew up with him virtually as a brother, is Judge Douglas Allstyn of the Criminal Court. And Mr. Rutgers Allstyn went with me, to his cousin—this was six years ago—and described the ticklish situation. And Judge Douglas Allstyn promised us that he would definitely assign to me a case, right after I graduated from school, in which—through considera­tion ahead of the time he was to render decision—he had definitely determined, on some technicality or other, to dis­charge the defendant. Some purely formal case, see? And by my taking that case—and technically winning it!—most of that vicious clause would be knocked out. You grasp that, do you, Aunt Linda?”

“Yas, Ah grasps it,” Aunt Linda nodded sagely. “Right by de tail, yas. An’ dat wuz a good way to git aroun’ de p’oblem. But yit you is heah, Elsa, ’cause day is somep’n wrong ’bout yo’ affairs. An’ ’bout dat vehy affair. All ob w’ich means dat dat judge gib you de wrong case—o’ some p’n?”

“No, Aunt. He wouldn’t do that. He even assured me so late as last June that he would take care of me all right. But, when I got out of school in September—and set up my office—he was in India, on a trip around the world. And not expected back till December. Which meant that I must just play safe and mark time, see, till he returned. So far as, I mean, taking any court cases.”

“Den how come, Honey, you is in trubble? W’y you don’ continue on mahkin’ time?”

“Because, Aunt Linda, a little while ago—just before I started over here—a judge of the Criminal Court called me up, and appointed me as defense counsel in a Criminal Court case—where the defendant has asked for immediate trial. For trial tonight, in short. I was quite frantic, for as it looked to me, from the judge’s words, the defendant’s chances were slim indeed. I—I almost had words with the judge. And he got very angry, Aunt, and told me that if I didn’t report to my client by 5 o’clock—I was disbarred. And—wait, that’s not all, Aunt!—he said that even though I did report to the client, the disbarment order would be held open—and if I then didn’t report in court tonight—it would go through at once.”

“Kin—kin he do dat?”

“By the new regulations, he can.”

“Hm? Well whut you do, den? Ah ’spose you got aholt ob dis Allstyn man quick?”

“I rang him, Aunt—yes. But he had just left Chicago. In his car. On a secret mission. Giving no one his whereabouts or his destination.”

“Hm r’ Den—whut? You called dis jedge back, mebbe?”

“I tried to—yes. But got only his man. And when I asked for the judge himself, his man said he’d gone out for a walk. To be gone till after 7 o’clock tonight.”

“Hm. Did he say whah you could cotch him?”

“Why, Aunt—this Judge couldn’t go for a walk! He has arthri—that is rheumatism in one knee, and gout in one foot. He simply won’t see me, that’s all; and is determined to put that disbarment order through if I don’t comply with his demands.”

“Hm? Da’s a complication a’right. Consid’an’ dat clause. An’—but if’n you wuz disbahhed now, Honey, cu’d you an’ways git ondisbahhed?”

“Undisbarred, Aunt? No! Only reinstated. There’s no such thing as undisbarment. If you’re disbarred—you’re dis­barred.”

“Ah see. An’ he gonna do dis if’n you don’ repoht to yo’ clien’ by 5 o’clock?”

“So he said—angrily—positively—almost apoplectically.”

“Hm. An’ dis beah client, he’s guilty, eh?”

“Doubtlessly, Aunt, as I have the best reason in the world to believe—based on later information I’ve gotten.”

Aunt Linda pondered troubledly.

“But Ah wondah w’y dat jedge he so hell-set to p’int des a kid lak you?”

“Why, I presume, Aunt, he was going over the roster of new attorneys appointed to the Bar, and—”

“No, he wuz’n,” insisted Aunt Linda. “Dey’s somep’n undah dat! Whut dis jedge’s name?”

“Judge Penworth, Aunt Linda.”

“Jedge—Penwu’th?” Aunt Linda exclaimed. “Now is he fus’ name Hilbilly—O’ Hilton—somep’n?”

“Why yes, Aunt. It’s Judge Hilford Penworth.”

“Lan’ sakes, Chil’! Ah see it all now. You ain’ got no chance ob arguin’ dat jedge out ob dat app’intment. An’ you nebah did hab.”

“I didn’t? But how—”

“ ’Cause, Chil’, yo’ Unc’ Silas, he done got—but fus’—dey is one link whut still missin’ in mah mind—but not ye’s. Fo’ you ain’ seen nothin’ whut Ah sees. Sense—but heah is de link: Is dey an’buddah ’tall, Chil’, whut knowed you wuz nullerfrying dat dang’ous clause by playin’ possum till dis heah Jedge Allstyn git back fm India, at w’ich time he gonna gib you des a cut-an’-dried case to try—one de winnin’ ob w’ich is all in de bag already—no, wait, Elsa—is dey an’body else know dat, whut would o’ could hab tol’ yo’ Unc’ Silas?”

“Well,” replied Elsa, “the only person, outside of my lawyer—and now you—and Judge Douglas Allstyn himself, in India—who knows the fact, is my landlady, Mrs. Hirschberg.”

“Hm? Jewisher, eh? An’ yo’ Unc’ Silas’ son-in-law a Jewisher? Well, whut coffee-gabbin’ societies do she belong to?”

“Coffee-gabbing soc—Oh, I get you, Aunt. Well, she belongs to a flock of them. One is known as the ‘Ladies’ Weekly Social Club,’ and another is the ‘Ladies’ Self-Improvement Society,’ and anoth—”

“Huh! Don’ go no fuddah! Spos’n Ah wuz to tell you dat Manny’s mama, Mrs. Lena Levinstein, de wife ob his papa whut int’rested in all dat Norfwes’ Side proputty, she ’long to de Ladies’ Self-Improbement Club today. W’ich ’zackly is whut Ah’s tellin’ you! Fo’ Ah huhd huh tryin’ to git Bella to ’long to it—on’y ob cose, Bella she too lazy to draw huh breath—let alone git out to any meetin’s. All right. Well—fus’ ob all—now dat Ah tells you dis far’—is it clah ’nough to you how yo’ possum-playin’ has done got to yo’ Unc’ Silas?”

Elsa was thoughtful. “Oh Auntie, Mrs. Hirschberg wouldn’t reveal—still—” And Elsa reflected upon the day she had been home ill, and had seen the tongues of at least the small and select Ladies’ Weekly Social Club, that day meet­ing at Mrs. Hirschberg’s home, actually go galloping—like strychnine-injected race horses—after Mrs. Hirschberg’s one-hour-steeped coffee had commenced to flow down their throats. Never before in her life had Elsa seen a phenomenon anything like it. And—

“Well,” was all she could say, “conceding even, Aunt, that Mrs. Hirschberg has unwillingly spilled—to Mrs. Levinstein —that her roomer is playing possum, as you put it, in a matter involving that estate ownership, and that the information has traveled thence to Mr. Levinstein, somehow, thence to Manny, and thence to Uncle Silas—there has still been nothing that Uncle Silas could do personally to change my course of action, or to alter circumstances for me.”

“No! Well, dey is—plentah. Yo’ unc’ des got a mohgage on dat jedge’s house, da’s all, an’—”

“Oh, come—come, Aunt Linda! I’ll accept the possibility of Mrs. Hirschberg spilling an unfortunate hint of the situation to Mrs. Levinstein Senior; but as for mortgages—why, mortgages, Aunt, as a source of pressure against people, went out with the last melodrama!”

“Oh, Ah see,” nodded Aunt Linda, most humbly. Sus­piciously so! “Dey has wen’ out, has dey, so fah as pressin’ peoples go? Well—do tell! Count of bein’ sohta ig’nant lak, Elsa, Ah didn’t know dat at all, an’—but by de way, Chil’, w’ud yo’ mind tellin’ me how many peoples in Chicago succeeds in redeemin’ they proputty, once fo’closah suit is act’ally file’ by de mohgage holdah?”

“Well, to be frank, Aunt, statistics are that, in Cook County, less than 5 in 100 so succeed. Because of the huge legal fees, and the Master-in-Chancery fee, and so forth, added on to the mortgage indebtedness. But—”

“An’ mebbe, Chil’,” persisted Aunt Linda, humbly, “you’d tell dis ig’nant ’ooman whut de statiticks is ’bout how many peoples ob de nin’y-fi’, in de hund’ed, gits somet’in’ out ob dey equity, w’en de place is sol’ undah de hammahr? O’ is de hammah gone out too—wid de last melldrammerer ?”

Elsa gave a half laugh. For Aunt Linda’s demeanor was, even to her, suspiciously humble. “No, Aunt, the hammer still actually falls—on foreclosed property. And—but as to your question, only 1 out of the remaining 95—or practically 1 per cent of the whole—gets anything at all out of the sale, because nobody bids foreclosed Cook County property in. Because of the delay, you see, in acquiring transferable title. In fact, Aunt, a party who gets foreclosed in Cook County is darned lucky not to get a deficiency judgment levied against him—or her—as the case may be.”

“Don’ know whut defishincy jedgment is,” proclaimed Aunt Linda, “but de fu’s paht ob whut you tell me is plenty ’pohtant by itself. Well den,”—she rocked gently—“summin’ it all up, a fo’closah suit, it mean—heah in Chicago—goo’night, don’ it?”

And she fixed Elsa with her gaze.

“We’ll—we-ell—” offered Elsa, “yes, it really does. But—”

“An’ oh c’ose,” said Aunt Linda mildly, “peoples don’t min’ packin’ up dey clothes an’ tings an’ gittin’ out ob houses whut dey has lovin’ly built de’sevves wid lil gahdens whut dey wives an’ children’s hab laid out! And ob co’se dey don’ mind gibbing up places eider whah big st’eet improbements goin’ come some day—an’ lettin’ somebody else git de big condamnation fees? No!” And now Aunt Linda’s mildness dropped suddenly. “Well, whut you has des’ tol’ me is ’cisely whut Ah has been tryin’ to convey to you. Dat moh’gages presses people des as bad today as dey did w’en de fus’ one was drawed up by de fus man whut got his eagle eye on somebuddy else’s propitty, o’ else des tryin’ to git intrust on somebody else’s bein’ in trubble. Wheneber dat fus mohgage wuz drawed up! An’ specially do dey presses people today, Chil’, w’en nobody cain’t git no money nowhah. Hah!” Aunt Linda laughed hollowly. “So—dey is gone out, is dey? Wid de ol’ mellerdrammerers? Well Chil’, befo’ you gits done wid life, you is gonna fin’ yo’sef centahed in mo’ an’ one mellerdrammerer whut is mo’ mellerdrammertic dan de ones whut played on dat ol’ showboat, whah I sit once in de back th’ee rows whah niggahs kin sit. Fac’ is—ifn you axes me—you is act’ally libbin’ a mellerdrammerer rahght dis minut’—and don’ eben know it. Dat’s whut! An’—but les us git down to hahd fac’s. Now Ah says yo’ Unc’ Silas done got a mohgage on dat jedge’s house. An’ you laffs at me. So—do dat Jedge lib on Prairie Abenoo?”

“Why yes, Aunt. So I found—when I got his number in the book and tried to call him back.”

“All right! Da’s all Ah wan’s to know! Yo’ Unc’ Silas he got mohgage on dat jedge’s house.”

“But, Aunt, how—how can you know all this—about Uncle Silas’ affairs?”

“How? Lan’ sake, Chil’. Ain’ Ah tell you once already how Ah clean up ‘roun’ yo’ Uncle’s flat off an’ on—an’ wash fo’ dat lazy Bella now an’ ag’in, at dat 8-room house ob huh’s? An’ on’y a few weeks ago w’en Ah wuz dah—yes, at Bella’s—an’ yo’ Uncle wuz stayin’ wid ’em fo’ a few nights, kaze de dec’rators hah made his flo’s all sticky wid vahnish—he an’ Manny wuz in Manny’s libery—talkin’ ’bout de mohgages—all of w’ich dey’s brung home from Manny’s safe downtown—an’ whut dey’s got all laid out for’ discussionin’—an’ I heah ’em discussin’ one on a Jedge Hillbilly’ Somebody’s house. An’ sayin’ he cain’t renew it—and dey don’ lak fo’closin’ neider, cause mebbe de big Prairie Abenoo Improbement don’t nebber come thu! An’—well, Chile, hit’s all clah to me. Yo’ Unc’ somehow fin’ out ’bout dis heah law case—an’ sic dat jedge on you to he’p him steal yo’ fathah’s land.”

Elsa was staggered now. “Well, Aunt’Linda, I’m dead sure there’s no collusion—at least so far as stealing my land is concerned. For Judge Penworth has a reputation for being straight. But as to the mortgage—and his appointing me—yes—there could be an agreement—yet I couldn’t dare claim collusion—just because the Judge has appointed me.”

“Hahdly,” said Aunt Linda sardonically. “You can’t claim nuffin’—wid dis disbahment o’der skimmin’ along to reach you in anotha’ houah o’ so. Hahdly!”

Aunt Linda now asked another question. “But dis heah man whut is to git tried? Whut de case ag’in him? He drunk o’ disohdaly—o’ what?”

Elsa shook her head. “The case against him is bad, Aunt. Burglary! And murder! Not one—but two charges. I ran out and got a Despatch the minute the Judge hung up on me—and got the details of the man’s crime. Or rather,” Elsa corrected herself punctiliously, “his alleged crime! But since the story was written by a man I personally happen to know is brother to the State’s Attorney himself, one can only assume, Aunt, that its facts are—are 24-karat, when it comes to being facts. But the point is, anyway, that the man was caught dead to rights with the stolen goods in his possession.”

“Well, dat don’ mean numen’ def’nit’, Chil’. An’ Ah don’ see w’y you mek sich final comclusions ’bout it—at leas’ at dis p’int. Fo’ dey is a t’ousum reasons why men som’times happens to hab on deysevves stolened goods. And it don’, in itself, mean nuffin’.”

“Sometimes not, maybe,” Elsa admitted ruefully, “but here quite the opposite. For this man, Aunt, admitted, in front of two highly reputable witnesses, that he did have the goods in question—and that he’d cracked the State’s Attorney’s safe, moreover, to get them!”