"Because Ferdinand died more than a year since;—almost immediately after you took her off."
"Why did you not tell me that at Bowick?"
"Because you were so uncommon uncivil. Was it likely I should have told you that when you cut up so uncommon rough?"
"An honest man would have told me the very moment that he saw me."
"When one's poor brother has died, one does not blurt it like that all at once."
"Your poor brother!"
"Why not my poor brother as well as anybody else's? And her husband too! How was I to let it out in that sort of way? At any rate he is dead as Julius Cæsar. I saw him buried,—right away at 'Frisco."
"Did he go to San Francisco?"
"Yes,—we both went there right away from St. Louis. When we got up to St. Louis we were on our way with them other fellows. Nobody meant to disturb you; but Ferdy got drunk, and would go and have a spree, as he called it."
"A spree, indeed!"