"You eavesdropper, what did you see?" Winifred Chester looked at him expectantly.
"I saw the worst-looking specimen of tramp humanity who has come under my observation for a year, with a bandage over one eye. He is sitting in that big chair with a plate and napkin in his lap, and his ugly mouth is full of beefsteak."
"And isn't Red having any?" cried Martha, with a glance at the empty platter.
"Not a smell. He's standing up by the chimney-piece, looking the picture of contentment—the idiot. But he modified his benevolent expression long enough to give me a glare, when he saw me looking in. That's the second glare I've had from him to-night, and I'm going home. I can't stand incurring his displeasure a third time in one day. Come, Martha, let's get back to our happy home—what there is left of it after the fray. We'll send over a plate of little cakes for the master of the house. A couple of dozen of them may fill up that yawning cavity of his. Of all the foolishness!"
CHAPTER IV
A RED HEAD
"Marriage," said James Macauley, looking thoughtfully into his coffee cup, as he sat opposite his wife, Martha, at the breakfast-table, "is supposed to change a man radically. The influence of a good and lovely woman can hardly be overestimated. But the question is, can the temper of a red-headed explosive ever be rendered uninflammable?"
"What are you talking about?" Martha inquired, with interest. "Ellen and Red? Red is changed. I never saw him so dear and tractable."
"Dear and tractable, is he? Have you happened to encounter him in the last twenty-four hours?"