“I should think the opposite,” said his wife, laughing, “by the way you 've told every man in town about David's money, and the way he blanched when he missed it. I think you 'd better take a lesson yourself about bringing up dreadful things.”
When they reached Green's house, a low, black cottage, they stopped a moment for the women to finish a discussion about croup.
“How did that look to you now, David?” said Green. “Did n't you think it would have been a good deal better to have left that picture out?”
“Which one?” said David.
“Why, the one where they'd chopped the man's head off with that machine, and were standing by, looking at the corpse. I don't like to see such things, for my part.”
“I don't know,” said David. “I did n't think about it particularly. I understood it was in the French Revolution.”
“Well, see all that flummer-diddle he got off about it,” said Green; “just as if any fool did n't know that a man could n't sleep that was haunted by a thing like that.”
“Well, some can stomach anything, and I suppose some can sleep on anything,” said David. “I guess it would take more than slicing one man's head off to make that Jew lie awake nights. If he 'd only admitted that I 'd been there! But as soon as I said I 'd left something, then for him and his wife to claim they never saw me! They 're cool ones!”
“Well, right here,—about what my wife flung out,” said Green, glancing over his shoulder to where the women were talking, both at once, woman-fashion; “you know my wife's way,—you haven't ever heard any such talk going round, have you, as that I was hounding folks about your bad luck? I say an honest man speaks right out,—no fear, no favor. Ain't that so?”