Witness: "Oh, once in a while he used to give me a rap in the eye,
or a kick in the slats, or something like that, but on the whole he
was pretty sensible."

The State: "Sensible? In what way?"

Witness: "I mean he was sensible enough not to punch his meal ticket
too often."

It is not necessary to go any farther into the direct examination of
Mrs. Elsie Morton, nor into the half-hearted efforts of Smilk's
disgusted lawyer to shake her in cross-examination. Nor is it
necessary to introduce here the testimony of Mrs. Jennie Finchley,
who succeeded her on the stand. It appears that Jennie was married
in 1914 when Smilk was out for three months. She supported him for
several months in 1916,--up to the time he packed up and left her on
the morning of the fourteenth of June, that year. As Herbert
Finchley he not only managed to live comfortably off the proceeds of
her delicatessen, but in leaving her he took with him nine hundred
dollars that she had saved out of the business despite his
gormandizing.






CHAPTER SIX