“Tickled to death, tickled to death,” responded Hiram, receiving his coffee from his wife’s hand and with it a look which made him blink once or twice in doubt.
“See the New Year in? Yes indeed,” he cried in answer to Irving’s explanation of his presence. “That’s just what we’ll do. I haven’t set up in years; but we’ll just sit around this fire, and tell yarns—”
“Hiram Salter,” said his wife, “if you think for one minute that we’re goin’ to do any such thing, I don’t. I’ve got to get up and get the breakfast, and you’ve got to get up and build fires. As if we couldn’t trust the New Year to come in respectably; and if you can’t, why, Rosalie and Mr. Irving will attend to it.”
The captain looked at her, astonished. Under cover of removing the cups and saucers to the kitchen, he spoke low to his consort. “Go to bed?” he asked. “Where’s your politeness, Betsy?”
“Where’s your common sense, Hiram Salter! You think Irving Bruce has ploughed down here to talk boats with you?”
Hiram scratched his head, and his eyes widened. “Why, I said that very thing to you the other night,” he protested, “and you said—”
“Never mind what I said! Just get upstairs as quick as you can.”
“Come with me, Mr. Irving,” said Betsy, returning to the living-room. “Here’s a little closet where you can’t much more’n turn around, but I guess you’ll sleep well. It’s a feather-bed.”
They stood alone in the chamber, and he closed the door and took her by the shoulders in the old familiar way.
“You remember our talk one night in the garden?” he asked.