The others joked and Mr. Knox offered Medora a piece of pie.
“Hard hearted devil, you are, Dingle,” he exclaimed. “To eat the cheese and offer your poor girl the bread.”
Medora jumped up and at the same moment Daisy Finch came along to seek her. They departed together and strolled from the works up the valley.
But Ned Dingle was evidently disturbed. His face had fallen and he lit his pipe and went slowly after the women.
“Take my tip and leave her alone,” shouted Knox; then he caught sight of Kellock’s perturbed countenance and turned to him.
“Aren’t they good friends?” he asked.
“Of course they are—none better.”
“Sometimes a bit of chaff makes a breeze end in laughter,” said the elder; “and sometimes it don’t.”
“Chaff’s a ticklish thing,” answered Jordan.
“To you it might be, because you’re one of the serious sort, that never see much to laugh at in anything,” retorted Philander; “but that’s your loss. Alice Barefoot in the rag house is the same. Can’t see a joke and mistook my fun yesterday for rudeness. I might have known by her eye she weren’t a laughter-loving creature. But Mrs. Dingle can laugh.”