"The law?" Sniffing, Jimmy indicated the legal patchwork on the wall with a comprehensive sweep of his pipe. "The law said as I was to pay them, but did I? Humph!"
"But they'll hardly dare to fly in the face of the province? Public opinion is a great moral force." She quoted a sentence from the editorial with gusto.
"Yes, but 'tain't much of a club. Did you ever see one of my hawgs stan' aside, even when he was full, to let another have a go at the trough? Not till I hit him on the snout. Well, they ain't agoin' to cross the trunk line these two years, an' for my part I don't care if they never cross."
"Why?" Her eyes dilated widely. "Wouldn't a competing line benefit you—all of the province?"
Nodding, he regarded her from half-shut eyes. "Oh, I ain't expecting to walk on gold this side o' the pearly gates. As for my reasons, they ain't a mile away from here. I'm not wishing too much success for a man that deserts his wife."
Touched and very much flushed as to the face by his genuine, if crabbed sympathy, the Reasons yet shook her head and spoke up for the recreant husband stoutly as she had defended him against herself. She made, however, small headway against his obduracy.
"Well, that's the way I see it. By-the-way," he added, heading off a disposition for further argument, "did you see the evangelist? Pitched his tent over by Flynn's. You want to go. Beats a three-ring circus when old man Cummings hits up to his gait."
"Jimmy! Jimmy!" His wife looked up from her ironing; then daunted, perhaps, by his twinkle, she addressed Helen. "He hadn't orter talk that away, my dear. If Mr. Cummings does go on the rampage a bit when he gets het up, at least he's sincere. As for him—" She turned a severe eye on her husband. "We'll get him yet."
"Yes, I see myself. Her idea of heaven"—he shrugged at the ironing-board—"is an eternal class-meeting with everybody giving their experience—love-feast she calls it. I like something solider. Give me plenty to eat, a pipe by a warm fire, an' something to read, an' I'll sign away my harp an' crown." Ignoring his better-half's remark that he would not lack the fire, he finished: "She's going. Wouldn't miss a meeting. Kedn't keep her away with a club. So if you'd alike to see some fun—"
"If 'twas jes' out of curiosity I'd ask her to stay at home," his wife interrupted. "But she's not that kind, an' I'll be glad to take her."