“It’s apt to be like that in hot weather after a rain,” Martha returned placidly. “What went wrong at the office this afternoon, papa?”
“Nothin’!” he said fiercely. “What’s my office got to do with wet salt? Why can’t you ever learn to keep some connection between your thoughts? Geemunently!”
“So you had a good day, did you, papa?”
“It would ’a’ been,” he replied angrily, “if it hadn’t been for a fool friend o’ yours!”
“Somebody I’m responsible for?” she inquired with a genial sarcasm that exasperated him into attempted mockery—for when he was angriest with her he would repeat something she said, and, to point the burlesque, would speak in a tinny and whining falsetto which he seemed to believe was a crushing imitation of his daughter’s voice. “ ‘Somebody I’m responsible for?’ ” he squeaked, using this form of reprisal now. “No; it ain’t somebody you’re responsible for!” Here he fell back upon downright ferocity. “Doggone him! Somebody better be responsible for him!”
At this Martha made a good guess. “Dan Oliphant!”
“Yes, ma’am! And I came within just one o’ throwin’ him out o’ my office! Stood up there and grinned at me in front o’ my own desk and told me what I had to do! What I had to do!”
“And do you have to, papa?” she asked.
“What!”
“I only wondered——”