"There again!" shouted my wildfire, stamping with her foot. "Why didst thou not call me Beelzebub and have done with 't?"
"For the reason," quoth her mother, calmly, "that neither Beel nor Zebub is a suiting name for a woman, and, furthermore, that thou art not the Devil, though thou dost act like him on occasions."
"Wife, wife," put in I, seeing that the girl was like to split with rage, "speak gentler to Keren."
"To Happuch," saith she.
"Speak gentler to the girl," saith I, hoping to compromise, as 'twere.
"Happuch," saith my wife again.
"Well, well," saith I, still hoping to split the difference, so that I would have neither my wife nor my daughter upon me, "if thou wouldst only speak gentler to Keren-Happuch, thou—"
"To Happuch," saith my wife a third time; whereat the lass did bounce out o' the house without more ado, and spent that night with a friend o' her own, by name one Mistress Meg Titmouse.
"Wife," saith I unto her later, hoping to draw her into converse concerning Keren, so that I might reason with her as to her treatment o' th' lass—"wife," saith I, amiably, and, as I thought, in a manner most winsome, "wherefore didst thou speak to Keren as thou didst this morning?"
"I spake to Happuch," saith my wife, "because I did choose so to do. And as for the why o' that wherefore, though thou shouldst smirk till doomsday like a dog scratching his ear, ne'er wilt thou get it out o' me!"