"Why, when you upped an' contradicted her like that." 'Bias started to fill his pipe. "Women are—what's the word?—sensitive; 'specially at their own table."
"I didn' contradict her," maintained Cai. "Leastways—"
"There's no reason to lose your temper about it, is there? . . . You gave me that impression, an' if you didn' give her the same, I'm mistaken."
"I'm not losin' my temper."
"No? . . . Well, whatever you did, 'tis done, an' no use to fret. Only I want you and Mrs Bosenna to be friends—she bein' our landlady, so to speak."
"Thank 'ee," said Cai again, holding a match to his pipe with an agitated hand. "If you remember, I ought to know it, havin' had all the early dealin's with her."
"She's very well disposed to you, too," said 'Bias. "Nothing could have been kinder than the way she spoke when I mentioned this School-Board business: nothing. We'd be glad, both of us, to see you fixed up in that job."
"I wonder you didn't think of takin' it on yourself."
"I did," confessed 'Bias imperturbably.
"You? . . . Well, what next?"