—The Romance of the First Radical.
“A fine face, marred by an expression of unscrupulous integrity.”
—Credit Lost.
The lady listened with fluttering attention. The lady was sweet and twenty, and the narrator—myself—was spurred to greater effort. Suddenly a thought struck her. It was a severe blow. She sat up straight, she stiffened her lips to primness, her fine eyes darkened with suspicion, her voice crisped to stern inquiry.
“I suppose, when Sunday came, you kept right on working?”
It was an acid supposition. Her dear little nose squinched to express some strong emotion—loving-kindness, perhaps; her dear little upper lip curled ominous. She looked as though she might bite.
“Kept right on working is right. We had to keep on working,” I explained. “We couldn’t very well work six days gathering cattle and then turn them all loose again on the seventh day—could we now?”
The lady frowned. The lady sniffed. She was not one to be turned aside by subterfuge. She leaned forward to strike, and flattened her brows in scorn. She looked uncommonly like a rattlesnake. She said:
“I suppose you couldn’t put them in the barn-yards?”
And I learned about readers from her.