Every day about half-past five he used to come home from his office
in the Mariposa Court House. On some days as he got near the house he
would call out to his wife:

"Almighty Moses, Martha! who left the sprinkler on the grass?"

On other days he would call to her from quite a little distance off:
"Hullo, mother! Got any supper for a hungry man?"

And Mrs. Pepperleigh never knew which it would be. On the days when
he swore at the sprinkler you could see his spectacles flash like
dynamite. But on the days when he called: "Hullo, mother," they were
simply irradiated with kindliness.

Some days, I say, he would cry out with a perfect whine of
indignation: "Suffering Caesar! has that infernal dog torn up those
geraniums again?" And other days you would hear him singing out:
"Hullo, Rover! Well, doggie, well, old fellow!"

In the same way at breakfast, the judge, as he looked over the
morning paper, would sometimes leap to his feet with a perfect howl
of suffering, and cry: "Everlasting Moses! the Liberals have carried
East Elgin." Or else he would lean back from the breakfast table with
the most good-humoured laugh you ever heard and say: "Ha! ha! the
Conservatives have carried South Norfolk."

And yet he was perfectly logical, when you come to think of it. After
all, what is more annoying to a sensitive, highly-strung man than an
infernal sprinkler playing all over the place, and what more