“I must admit that I should prefer to remain hungry mentally forever if to procure food for thought it were necessary to don the apparel of a tramp, and prowl around at all hours of the night, seeking, doubtless, in the vilest dens, among the lowest vagabonds for mental sustenance,” chirped Arabella sharply, prodding her needlework spitefully.
“Perhaps, my good sister, you will never quite understand that some men are born investigators. By nature they are led to investigate any phenomenon that presents itself.”
“Then I insist that it is a most unfortunate thing for one so born,” pecked Miss Arabella with the sharpness of a quarrelsome English sparrow.
“It causes one to make a Paul Pry of himself and wander about in a very questionable manner at unseemly hours, to the injury of both health and reputation. When one of your age, David, is so endowed by nature it is a positive misfortune.”
Chapman appeared greatly amused by the irritated manner of his sister, for he smiled in that ghastly way of his as he leaned back in his chair, still with his violoncello resting between his legs, and said,
“You see, Arabella, there may be a great difference in the way we regard the affairs of life. Doubtless scientific researches may not afford much pleasure to a spinster of your age, but such researches are very attractive to me.”
“All I can add to the opinion already expressed is that when your so-called scientific researches not alone lead you to assume the character of an outcast, and cause you to wander about at night like a homeless cat, but also induce you to make our home a receptacle for all the stray, vulgar, dirty negroes that happen to come to Boston, I must certainly protest against indulgence in such researches by you,” retorted the elderly maiden severely, as she cast her glances about her immaculately clean apartment, and remembered some disagreeable event of the last few months.
David was highly amused by this speech, for he gave utterance to a cackling kind of laugh and exclaimed,
“Arabella, you’ll never get to heaven if the road be muddy. You will be fearful of getting your skirts soiled. I shall be right sorry for your soul if the path to the other place be clean. I fear in that event that nothing could hold you back from going straight to Hades.”