"I hope you didn't beat the boy," remarked Mrs. Smithers, after a pause.
"He ran too fast for me," replied Smithers, "and took refuge in neighbor Barker's house."
"He'll be all right there, and when he wants his supper he'll come in," said Mrs. Smithers.
"It's a pity we can't choose our neighbors!" exclaimed her husband. "There's that Barker—he's an undertaker; it's a ghastly trade, and I've remarked that Tommy is more friendly with Charley Barker, the coffin maker's son, than he is with his own brother and sister."
"He must have some one to play with."
"Granted; but he needn't associate with those beneath him."
"The Barkers are hard-working and very respectable," Mrs. Smithers ventured to observe.
"Oh, very!" answered Smithers, sarcastically; "very much so indeed. I'm not saying anything against them. Still, they are not on a par with us, and if your first husband was a mechanic and left you with an only child, an infant at that, to go and work and die in the Nevada mines, I am not supposed to share your tastes."
"Poor man," said Mrs. Smithers, "there was no work for him here. He thought he would do so much better for all of us out West. He promised to send for me and Tommy soon."
"Well, he died, and he couldn't help it," put in Smithers, who was in a bad temper.