“I think these girls are so foolish; they haven’t a bit of pluck. I’ve been trying to persuade her to go to the dentist’s and have her teeth out, but she won’t. I’m just tired to death to-night, and there’s no end to the work; Bridget has been moaning around all day—why her teeth——”
“Oh, bother her teeth!”
“Why, don’t you care to hear anything that goes on at home, George?”
“I don’t care to hear about teeth that go on at home; Bridget’s teeth especially. I don’t care a rap for the whole set.”
“How cross you are to-night, George! when I’m so tired, too. Johnnie, your face is dirty, go and wash it; be quick now, for it’s time for dinner. I don’t know that Bridget will ever call us. She’s probably sitting out in the kitchen, nursing her teeth; why she has five roots there, and all of them so inflamed that——”
“Bother her roots, I say!”
“George, you are extremely irascible, but that’s the way; I get no sympathy at all.”
“Not when you want it by the wholesale for Bridget’s roots.”
“Well, what should we talk about? I don’t see how we can ever have conversation in the home, if you won’t listen to anything.”
And so they went on—the tired husband, moody and irritable, and the tired wife, loquacious about matters of no interest. I felt sorry for her who spake, and him who heard.