“Lester, darling,” Flo said, “I wish you wouldn’t get yourself involved with such unpleasant people. If you are going to gamble, why can’t you do it with nice men who won’t insist upon being paid constantly?”
“I’d be glad to do it,” Lester said, “if only I could find any.”
“As for me, I am inclined to let Lester worry about his own problems,” Uncle Homer said, “for the rest of us clearly have all we can handle already. I hate to admit it, but I’m bound to say that Brewster is right. We must merely wait and hope for a short life for Senorita Fogarty. When she is dead, everything will turn out as we had hoped and had every reasonable right to expect.”
“Unless,” Brewster said, “there is another unfortunate development.”
“Unfortunate development? What kind of other unfortunate development could there possibly be?” Uncle Homer slapped a knee and glared angrily at the lawyer. “By God, Brewster, is there no end to your duplicity. You have no sooner pulled one dirty trick on us than you begin to hint immediately that there may be more to come. Do you have more extractions? If so, you will please inform us what they are at once.”
“I will do so if you will only give me the chance,” Brewster said. “It is further provided by Artemus Hunter that his estate will continue in trust for the comfort and support of any and all issue of Senorita Fogarty, and of any and all issue of the issue of Senorita Fogarty, should there be such issue, and for the entire time, if so, that said issue shall live.”
Everyone stared for some time at Brewster as if he had suddenly sprouted horns and a forked tail, expressions varying from sheer horror in Uncle Homer’s case to a kind of comic incredulity in Flo’s, and then Uncle Homer finally shuddered and rubbed his palms together and said quite calmly in a voice of dreadful restraint.
“Permit me to restate that, Brewster. Permit me to restate it in my own words, and then kindly have the goodness to tell me that I misunderstood. You seemed to say, as I heard you, that Father’s estate will be held in trust, not only for Senorita Fogarty, but for all of her goddam pups, if any, and for all of the pups of her goddam pups, and so on to the end of the goddam line. This is, of course, an absurdity that even Father could hardly have imagined or perpetrated. I am right, am I not, Brewster, in this judgment?”
“You may be right in thinking it’s an absurdity,” Brewster said, “but you are wrong in thinking that your father couldn’t have imagined it or perpetrated it. He could and did.”
“Well, by God,” said Uncle Homer. “I am absolutely appalled. It’s shameful to know that my own father was such an unmitigated monster.”
“He was my father, too, I’m sorry to say,” Flo said, “and in my opinion he was a simple lunatic. What I would like to know, however, is what we can now do about it. Lester, darling, you have always been clever at getting around things. What on earth can we do?”
“That’s easy,” said Lester. “We must have Senorita Fogarty spayed at once.”
“You see?” Flo turned to Uncle Homer with an expression of amazement and delight. “Didn’t I tell you that he is clever in such matters? Lester, darling, it’s absolutely incredible how you think of exactly the right things on the spur of the moment.”
“It would certainly be direct and effective,” said Uncle Homer. “I’ll hand him that.”
“I can see why he thought of it,” Hester said. “After money, it is in his major field of interest.”
“There is only one thing wrong with it that I can see,” said Junior. “It assumes a fact not in evidence. Ask Brewster if it doesn’t. As a lawyer he should know.”
“What fact?” said Hester. “Damn it, Junior, must you spoil everything?”
“It assumes that Senorita Fogarty is not already pregnant,” said Junior.
“Good God!” Uncle Homer, who had been glaring at the lawyer all this time, continued to glare. “Brewster, is Senorita Fogarty pregnant?”
“No, she is not. I can assure you that she is not. I can assure you.”
“Do Chihuahuas actually get pregnant?” Flo said. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Oh, don’t be absurd, Mother,” Hester said. “Where do you suppose all the Chihuahuas come from? Furthermore, as you can tell from her name, Senorita Fogarty is Spanish and Irish, and is surely subject to all sorts of illicit passions.”
“I don’t doubt for a minute that the damn dog has round heels,” said Junior.
“But she’s so small,” Flo said. “It sounds immoral.”
Willis Brewster hawked loudly and lifted a hand soliciting silence.
“If I may intrude. If I may, please. I am bound to tell you that the question of spaying Senorita Fogarty is strictly academic. Academic. You will recall that Senorita left this room in the custody of Mrs. Crump, who is, I may add, together with Mr. Crump, her legal custodian. They are at present, I should judge, secured in the Crump quarters, from whence, I predict, neither fire nor flood nor threats of hell shall cause them to budge. It would, in brief, be quite impossible to get permission to perform the operation.”
“Well,” said Uncle Homer, “here is Crump himself still with us. Crump, you will kindly go at once and fetch Senorita Fogarty.”
Crump, thus brought to attention, jumped as if stabbed in the stern with a hat pin, and his Adam’s apple leaped wildly in his withered neck. He looked about desperately for a sympathetic eye, and saw with despair that even Brewster’s was no more than judicial, pledged only to justice without favoritism. Finding himself cornered, he weighed the present menace against the wrath of Mrs. Crump, and found his choice, after all, to be remarkably clear and easy. He drew himself erect with all the defiance of a martyr already dehydrated by the heat of burning faggots.
“There they are,” he said, “and there they stay.”
“What’s that?” Uncle Homer’s voice rose and skidded and cracked. “Crump, do you have the damned temerity to stand there and defy your master?”
“Master,” said Crump, “has joined the angels. I don’t have any master now.”
“True,” Brewster said. “I’m bound by my legal profession to support Crump’s position. In this house, indeed, he is the master.”
“Is that so?” said Webster. “I should have said, offhand, that Mrs. Crump is the master.”
“That, young Hester, is a domestic matter, not a legal one.”
“So far as we are concerned, it is a distinction of no consequence,” Hester said. “Senorita Fogarty is still left free to indulge her beastly passions as she pleases.”
“Or what is worse,” Uncle Homer said, “as Crump pleases.”
“There is little doubt,” said Lester, “that the old devil will live here forever in a litter of Chihuahuas.”
“Perhaps not,” Uncle Homer said, staring at Senorita’s legal custodian with an expression of baleful speculation, “perhaps not. Crump, you may come a cropper when you least expect it.”
“That constitutes a threat, Homer. A threat. As an attorney, I cannot brook any threats.” Brewster leveled at Crump a look which appeared in itself threatening. “Crump, you are a catalyst. With all due respect, I suggest that your presence is no longer necessary in this room.”
Crump, having concluded that too much of a good thing could be made of defiance, lost no time in leaving. Uncle Homer stood up suddenly and took a step after him, as if tempted to pursue, but then stopped, reversed himself, and sat down again.
“Brewster,” he said, “you are certainly the greatest shyster and scoundrel of the century. You have permitted us to be thoroughly diddled by a lunatic without taking a single step to prevent it, which was your plain duty. As for me, I intend to go through that abominable document word by word, however deadly, and if I find the slightest shenanigan in your damned extractions, I’ll have your license.”