“Well, what?”
“In jail for highway robbery.”
She went to the bell. “Will you have your tea now?”
“Tea! Mice and—I mean tea? Why didn’t you teach that boy that the whale swallowed Jonah?” His voice like axes thudding. “That’s the cause of this! How could he know that highway robbery was wrong, if he didn’t know the Jonah swal—the whale swallowed Jonah? Why didn’t you tell him that well-known fact?”
She looked at him, miragically, as usual. “I’ll tell you why. I am a woman!”
Bull’s-eye! The perfect answer! He put his arm around her.
“Come, let’s forget it.”
She saw Huggo in prison. “Why did you do it, Huggo?”
“My name’s Hugh. Everybody at home called me that awful name. I couldn’t stick it. I’d rather be in jail.”
Strike one!