Read "The Dumpling" by Coulson Kernahan online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Miss Clara sat down -- perhaps I should say collapsed down. But for the fact that a huge Chesterfield stood immediately at her back, ready to receive the fair burden of her charms, I am persuaded that her ultimate destination would have been the floor. The suddenness of my statement "dropped" her as neatly as a good marksman "drops" his bird.
Sinking -- "all of a flutter," as she afterwards described it, thus unconsciously confirming the aptness of my bird imagery -- upon the Chesterfield, this truly remarkable woman merely observed, "Well, I never! " and then as speedily recovering herself, sat up and said, quietly: