After a little more objection, which he seemed to think firmly established his independence, he ended his remarks thus:
"Of course, as you say, it is more bracing. Yes, that's a fact, Margaret. I couldn't help noticing when I came out this morning that I felt like a new man, and you—why, 'pon my word, you looked as bright and rosy as a girl of sixteen. Oh, the surf here is great. It really is. I like it; don't you?"
This last he had addressed to me. I was so occupied in a study of, and so astonished by, the facility with which he took his mental flops, after enjoying his little "kick," that I was taken off my feet by his sudden appeal to me, and was quite at a loss for a reply which would do justice to the occasion, and at the same time put a stop to the contest between husband and wife.
But, as usual, my wife hastened to my rescue and covered my confusion by her gay little laugh and explanation.
"Ha, ha, ha," she laughed, "you have caught my husband napping already. I know exactly where he was. He was lumbering along through an elaborate speculation on, and a comparison of, the relative merits of—" here she began telling them off on her fingers to the great amusement of our neighbors—"first, fresh and salt water bathing; second, the method, time, place, and condition of each as affected by the moon, stars, and Gulf Stream. He was, most likely, climbing over Norway with a thermometer, or poking a test-tube of some kind into the semi-liquefaction which passes itself off as water to those unfortunates who are stranded along the shores of the Mississippi. Just wait; one of these days he will get down to our discussion and he'll agree with us when he gets there. But don't hurry him."
We all joined in the laugh at my expense; and I remarked that I had served so long as a target for my wife's fun that even if I could skip around, mentally, at as lively a rate as she seemed to expect, I would pretend that I couldn't, in order not to deprive her of her chief source of amusement. At this point our neighbor's new cook came to the edge of their porch and asked her mistress if she might speak to her for a moment. She arose to go.
"Oh, thunder, Margaret, I hope you don't intend to allow that worthless girl to call you home every time you go any place. Tell her to wait. It can't be much she wants," said our neighbor.
"Jane," said his wife sweetly, reseating herself, "you can wait until I come home. It won't be long."
"I wonder if you'd better do that, Margaret," said he, just as our wives had begun to discuss something relative to housekeeping. "Jane is a good girl, and she wouldn't call you if it were not something important, Don't you think we had better go at once?"
"I did think so," said she, and bidding us goodnight our neighbors crossed the lawn and re-entered their own door and closed it for the night.