“What, wife?” said I, all eagerness, expecting some mystical proposition; “what, wife?”
“We will rub this table all over with that celebrated ‘roach powder’ I’ve heard of.”
“Good gracious! Then you don’t think it’s spirits?”
“Spirits?”
The emphasis of scornful incredulity was worthy of Democritus himself.
“But this ticking—this ticking?” said I.
“I’ll whip that out of it.”
“Come, come, wife,” said I, “you are going too far the other way, now. Neither roach powder nor whipping will cure this table. It’s a queer table, wife; there’s no blinking it.”
“I’ll have it rubbed, though,” she replied, “well rubbed;” and calling Biddy, she bade her get wax and brush, and give the table a vigorous manipulation. That done, the cloth was again laid, and we sat down to our morning meal; but my daughters did not make their appearance. Julia and Anna took no breakfast that day.
When the cloth was removed, in a businesslike way, my wife went to work with a dark colored cement, and hermetically closed the little hole in the table.