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A Sappho of Green Springs by Bret Harte
page 78 of 200 (39%)
"There, d--n it!" he said impatiently, in a voice whose rich depth was
like Josephine's, but whose querulous action was that of the two old
people before him, "let me go, and quit that, I didn't come here to be
strangled! I want some money--money, you hear! Devilish quick, too, for
I've got to be off again before daylight. So look sharp, will you?"

"But, Stevy dear, when you didn't come that time three months ago, but
wrote from Los Angeles, you said you'd made a strike at last, and"--

"What are you talking about?" he interrupted violently. "That was just
my lyin' to keep you from worryin' me. Three months ago--three months
ago! Why, you must have been crazy to have swallowed it; I hadn't a
cent."

"Nor have we," said the old woman, shrilly. "That hellish sister of
yours still keeps us like beggars. Our only hope was you, our own boy.
And now you only come to--to go again."

"But SHE has money; SHE'S doing well, and SHE shall give it to me,"
he went on, angrily. "She can't bully me with her business airs and
morality. Who else has got a right to share, if it is not her own
brother?"

Alas for the fatuousness of human malevolence! Had the unhappy couple
related only the simple facts they knew about the new guest of Burnt
Ridge Ranch, and the manner of his introduction, they might have spared
what followed.

But the old woman broke into a vindictive cry: "Who else, Steve--who
else? Why, the slut has brought a MAN here--a sneaking, deceitful,
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