“Tell her to go to the devil,” he sputtered.
As he disappeared at the bend in the stairs he distinctly heard Annie say:—
“I can see myself doing it—not.”
For an hour he paced the floor of his little bed-chamber, fuming and swearing to himself in a mild, impotent fashion—and in some dread of the door. Such words and sentences as these fell from his lips:—“Nobody!” “Keeps me on the place!” “Because she’s tender-hearted!” “I will fire her!” “Can’t talk back to me!” “Damned Irisher!” And so on and so forth until he quite wore himself out. Then he sat down at the window and let the far-away look slip back into his troubled blue eyes. They began to smart, but he did not blink them.
Phoebe found him there at four when she came in for her nap. He promised to play croquet with her. 30
Dinner was served promptly that evening, and it was the best dinner Bridget had cooked in a month.
“That little talk of mine did some good,” said he to himself, as he selected a toothpick and went in to read “Nicholas Nickleby” till bedtime. “They can’t fool with me.”
He was reading Dickens. His wife had given him a complete set for Christmas. To keep him occupied, she said.