amateur]. Stealing nickels doesn't develop the imagination.

UNA [desperately]. How can you love your wife? Some simple,
economizing, prosaic, hausfrau who ----

GEORGE [with spirit]. I don't know what you're saying, but you
better be careful not to insult my wife. She's as good as you are
and a rector's daughter.

UNA [dumbfounded]. What?

GEORGE. Yes. Daughter of one of the biggest sky-pilots in town. I
met her at a settlement house. She put the question to me, too.

UNA [angry and doubting]. She ----?

GEORGE. Sure. I've been through something like this before or I'd
never been able to stand it so well.

UNA [as before]. Your wife ----?

GEORGE. Had a good deal more pluck than you, though. Up and told
her father she would marry me if he liked it or lumped it. He
said he'd cut her. And he did. We never seen him since. But Naomi
and I don't care. That's her name; so you can see she's a
Bible-poacher's daughter. Naomi and I've been happier than any
people on earth. [Sternly.] She's taught me to stand when a lady
was standing. That's why I wouldn't obey you. She's teaching me
how to speak, too, and if I do say "ain't" and a lot of other
things I oughtn't to when I'm excited, that ai -- isn't her