"Yes, you. If anyone needs to go to church it is you after what you did yesterday. The burden of your many sins must be pretty heavy by this time. I am thoroughly ashamed of you. What in the world possessed you to do such a thing?"
"Brains, gall, an' luck, as I've informed ye before."
"I don't see what they had to do with it. You have the gall all right, and luck helped you out. But you might have used your brains to a far better advantage. You were never like any man I ever knew, and you're getting worse all the time."
"Tildy, I'm not like other men." Abner blew out a match and looked thoughtfully at his wife. "I couldn't be like other men if I tried. The Lord didn't build me that way. I guess He got so tired making so many men alike, who all do an' say the right things, that when He came to me He gave a different twist to my make-up. He was experimentin' on Abner Andrews, of Ash Pint."
"H'm, if He did, then I don't believe He's ever tried it again."
"Mebbe not, Tildy. But He might do worse. Now look here, I'm different from most men, I acknowledge. But in what way? I'll tell ye, if ye don't know. I'm not afraid to speak me mind when necessary, an' fight like the divil aginst a bunch of grafters, an' git more'n even with 'em if I kin. I enjoy a bit of fun now an' then."
"Queer fun you like, it seems to me," his wife retorted.
"Mebbe so. But fun with no punch in it is no fun at all to my way of thinkin'."
"To hurt the feelings of others; that's the kind of fun you like."
"Don't be so sure of that. I have never hurt a fly in fun, remember, an' hope I never shall. But when it comes to Rackshaw, Ikey Dimock, an' a bunch sich as came from Glucom yesterday, then I'm willin' to see 'em squirm under me fun. Them's my religious convictions, though mebbe they don't altogether jibe with wot ye hear at church."