“Let me alone, imperence,” said the young lady.
“Never mind,” said the one-eyed man, calling after the girl as she left the room. “I’ll step out by-and-by, Mary. Keep your spirits up, dear.” Here he went through the not very difficult process of winking upon the company with his solitary eye, to the enthusiastic delight of an elderly personage with a dirty face and a clay pipe.
“Rum creeters is women,” said the dirty-faced man after a pause.
“Ah! no mistake about that,” said a very red-faced man, behind a cigar.
After this little bit of philosophy there was another pause.
“There’s rummer things than women in this world though, mind you,” said the man with the black eye, slowly filling a large Dutch pipe, with a most capacious bowl.
“Are you married?” inquired the dirty-faced man.
“Can’t say I am.”
“I thought not.” Here the dirty-faced man fell into fits of mirth at his own retort, in which he was joined by a man of bland voice and placid countenance, who always made it a point to agree with everybody.
“Women, after all, gentlemen,” said the enthusiastic Mr. Snodgrass, “are the great props and comforts of our existence.”