“Looks like a shade for weak eyes,” said the wife.
They had debated whether they should enter it or not. He thought no, she thought yes; but he would not insist and she would not insist; she wished him to do as he thought best, and he wished her to do as she thought best, and they had made two or three false starts and retreats before they got inside. But they were in there at length, and busily engaged inquiring into the availability of a small, lace-curtained, front room, when Richling took his wife so completely off her guard by addressing her as “Madam,” in the tone and manner of Dr. Sevier, that she laughed in the face of the householder, who had been trying to talk English with a French accent and a hare-lip, and they fled with haste to the sidewalk and around the corner, where they could smile and smile without being villains.
“We must stop this,” said the wife, blushing. “We must stop it. We’re attracting attention.”
And this was true at least as to one ragamuffin, who stood on a neighboring corner staring at them. Yet there is no telling to what higher pitch their humor might have carried them if Mrs. Richling had not been weighted down by the constant necessity of correcting her husband’s statement of their wants. This she could do, because his exactions were all in the direction of her comfort.
“But, John,” she would say each time as they returned to the street and resumed their quest, “those things cost; you can’t afford them, can you?”
“Why, you can’t be comfortable without them,” he would answer.
“But that’s not the question, John. We must take cheaper lodgings, mustn’t we?”
Then John would be silent, and by littles their gayety would rise again.
One landlady was so good-looking, so manifestly and entirely Caucasian, so melodious of voice, and so modest in her account of the rooms she showed, that Mrs. Richling was captivated. The back room on the second floor, overlooking the inner court and numerous low roofs beyond, was suitable and cheap.
“Yes,” said the sweet proprietress, turning to Richling, who hung in doubt whether it was quite good enough, “yesseh, I think you be pretty well in that room yeh.[1] Yesseh, I’m shoe you be verrie well; yesseh.”