Doris was screaming at her mother:
“Mamma! I’m married, Mamma! Mamma! I’m married!”
“Married!” shrieked Mrs. Houston. “My God, ain’t we had enough trouble here tonight! Married! Who—”
She caught sight of Maxwell. “You!” she screeched, rushing at him, waving her pudgy hands. The diamonds on her fingers sent dazzling glints of light into his eyes. “You get out of here! Get out, I say! Get out!”
“We’re mar—” began Max. “I tell you—”
Mrs. Houston rushed him into the hall, screeched a final, “Get out!” and dived back into the parlor. The billowing form of the Negro maid suddenly appeared before Max. He gave back a step.
“De front door’s open,” said the Negress pointedly.
“What you talking about?” demanded Max. “I tell you we’re married, all right. We—”
“Ain’t you kicked up enough bobbery ‘round heah for one night?” demanded the Negress. “You get out now. Mebbe you telefoam t’morrow.”
“Telephone!” sputtered Max. “I tell you she’s my—”
“You to blame for it all!” glowered the Negress. “Leavin’ the needle stickin’ in de chair wheah anybody’d knowed de baby would get hold of it!”
She billowed forward. Max suddenly found himself on the front porch.
“Needle — baby—” he gurgled dazedly. “What — what—”
“You no ‘count good-fo’ nothin’! De baby he swallered it!”
The door closed in his face.
He started the car. It moved slowly away. “Telephone, hell,” he said suddenly. “She’s my—”
But he did not say it. An approaching car swung wide of him. He did not see it. He was fumbling in his pocket. At last he drew out a crumpled cigarette. Another car swerved wildly and barely missed Maxwell’s car.
The cruising driver saw only a big car moving with erratic slowness on the wrong side of the street driven by a young man in evening clothes at nine o’clock in the morning.
The End
