Honest Ezra Triplett! Loyal, staunch friend, quaint, saturnine, creature that he is.
"Doc," he said, "I'd like darn well to take one of my wives along. It's gonter be kinder lonely up there in the ice with all you boys off gunnin'."
I smiled indulgently at the old man's foibles.
"Which one do you want to take?"
"The gal from Sausalito," he explained. "I ain't seen her in about a year, an' I'm gettin' kinder fed-up on ... you know ... Noo York."
I nodded. "We'll have to keep it secret. You know I've absolutely forbidden it. She can join us at St. Johns and come aboard as wardrobe woman. No one must suspect that she is your wife."
Triplett shifted his quid and slowly winked his false eye.
"She ain't," he said.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] "Ants of the Ant-Arctic" by W.W. Waxman, F.O.B.