“Oh, come now, Jimmy,” she went on in rejoinder to what she evidently heard. “There’s no use talking that way.... Oh, you’re sore? Well, I can’t help it. I wouldn’t have done any different even if you had told me what you wanted.... You don’t care if I never come back? Oh, very well—same to you, and many of ‘em!... So long, Jimmy, and when you get decent come up. I may let you in, and then again maybe not.”
CHAPTER XII
THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW WAY
WHEN next Haddon and his wife met at the breakfast table Haddon was more than ordinarily out of sorts, his wife rather more than ordinarily grave and silent. At length he flung back from the table.
“Well, don’t it beat the devil,” said he, “how ungrateful some people are! Here our hill-billy turns up missing this morning. Where do you suppose he is?”
“I fancy he’ll find his way back. Perhaps we’ll hear from him soon.” She spoke quietly, not evincing any of her own uneasiness over Joslin’s disappearance.
“You seem to have a very good notion of him and his ways! I’ll say he didn’t have much politeness about him—just to pull his freight without a word of thanks. He may have left town for all I know.”
“He’s a strange man in some ways!”