"In other words," he answered, strangely catching her meaning at once, "one chair is like another to you."
"Well, is there any difference?" she queried. She was very much interested in this question, for the subtleties of refined comfort held no place in her life. Knowledge of luxuries was quite outside the ken of the younger members of the Procter family.
The big man said: "Yes, there is a difference; a decided difference." He was thinking of his household with its retinue of trained servants, each helping to make the days revolve smoothly.
"Why aren't you at work?" asked Suzanna then. "My father works every day in the hardware store and sometimes way into the night on his invention in the attic. He doesn't have a chair filled with pillows to lean against. Does God like you better than He does us?"
"Eh, what's that? What do you mean?"
"Because you don't have to work! And you think one chair is better than another to sit in, and you can shout at the little man and make him afraid."
"Well, we'll not talk of that," said the big man testily. "And now I'll ask you a few questions. What does your mother do when rent week comes round? Cry, and throw up to your father the fact that she can't make ends meet? That's what women generally do, I've heard and read."
"Oh, no, my mother doesn't do that," said Suzanna, shaking her head. "She just looks sad at first and sits and thinks and thinks and then after awhile she says: 'Well, if everybody was thoughtful we'd all have enough. But when some people waste, then others must pay the piper'—'pay the piper'—I like the singing way that sounds, don't you?"
"And who does she mean by other people?"
Suzanna smiled confidently: "Oh, she just says that; so no one really is blamed, I guess. There really isn't anyone of that kind living; 'cause nobody in the world could waste if they knew some children needed shoes and some little boys' elbows stuck through their coats; would anyone?"