of her intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of getting
her fingers near the scruff of his neck.

"But, I thought, Susan, he was dead," was my very natural comment upon
this outbreak.

"So did I, Master Paul," was Susan's rejoinder; "that was his
artfulness."

"Then he isn't buried in Manor Park Cemetery?"

"Not yet; but he'll wish he was, the half-baked monkey, when I get
hold of him."

"Then he wasn't a good man?"

"Who?"

"Your husband."

"Who says he ain't a good man?" It was Susan's flying leaps from
tense to tense that most bewildered me. "If anybody says he ain't
I'll gouge their eye out!"

I hastened to assure Susan that my observation had been intended in
the nature of enquiry, not of assertion.

"Brings me a bottle of gin--for my headaches--every time he comes
home," continued Susan, showing cause for opinion, "every blessed
time."