"I'm plum sick of these here jokes that's got to have a woman on the p'int of 'em," returned Mrs. Spade, tightly screwing on the top of the glass jar. "I've always noticed that thar ain't nothin' so funny in this world but it gits a long sight funnier if a man kin turn it on his wife."
"Now, my dear—" helplessly expostulated Tom.
"My name's Susan, Tom Spade, an' I'll have you call me by it or not at all. If thar's one thing I hate on this earth it's a 'dear' in the mouth of a married man that ought to know better. I'd every bit as lief you'd shoot a lizard at me, an' you ain't jest found it out. If you think I'm the kind of person to git any satisfaction out of improper speeches you were never mo' mistaken in yo' life; an' I kin p'int out to you right now that I ain't never heard one of them words yit that I ain't had to pay for it. A 'dear' the mo' is mighty apt to mean a bucket of water the less. Oh, you can't turn my head with yo' soft tricks, Tom Spade. I'm a respectable woman, as my mother was befo' me, an' I don't want familiar doin's from any man, alive or dead. The woman who does, whether she be married or single, ain't no better than a female—that's my opinion!"
She paused to draw breath, and Tom was quick to take advantage of the intermission. "Good Lord, Mr. Christopher, those darn young fools are at it agin! " he exclaimed, darting toward the adjoining room.
With a stride, Christopher pushed past him and, opening the door, stopped uncertainly upon the threshold.
At the first glance he saw that the trouble was between Will and Fred Turner, and that Will, because of his slighter weight, had got very much the worst of the encounter. The boy stood now, trembling with anger and bleeding at the mouth, beside an overturned table, while Fred—a stout, brawny fellow—was busily pummelling his shoulders.
"You're a sneakin', puny-livered liar, that's what you are!" finished Turner with a vengeance.
Christopher walked leisurely across the room.
"And you're another," he observed in a quiet voice—the voice of his courtly father, which always came to him in moments of white heat. "You are exactly that—a sneaking, puny-livered liar." His manner was so courteous that it came as a surprise when he struck out from the shoulder and felled Fred as easily as he might have knocked over a wooden tenpin. "You really must learn better manners," he remarked coolly, looking down upon him.
Then he wiped his brow on his blue shirt-sleeve and called for a glass of beer.