trick like that! Now do you want ter know where Mis' Kennett re'ly doos
live? Wall, _she lives in the rear_! Her number's 32-1/2, 'n I vow she
gits more credit o' livin' in the front house 'n I do, 'n I pay four
dollars more rent! Ever see her? I thought not! I guess 'f you hed you
wouldn't think of her livin' in a house like this!"

"Excuse me. I didn't expect to make any trouble"--

"Oh, I've nothin' agin _you_, but just let me ketch her puttin' on airs
'n pertendin' to live like her betters, that's all! She's done it
before, but I couldn't never ketch her at it. The idee of her keepin' up
a house like this!" and with a superb sniff like that of a battle-horse,
she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion and
sought one at the back which might command a view of my meeting with her
rival.

I slid meekly through a side gate, every picket of which was decorated
with a small child, stumbled up a dark narrow passage, and found myself
in a square sort of court out of which rose the rear houses so
objectionable to my Duchess in the front row.

It was not plain sailing, by any means, owing to the collection of tin
cans and bottles through which I had to pick my way, but I climbed some
frail wooden steps, and stood at length on the landing of Number 32-1/2.

The door was open, and there sat Patsy, "minding" the Kennett baby, a
dull little lump of humanity, whose brain registered impressions so
slowly that it would play all day long with an old shoe without
exhausting its possibilities.