“The one was drowned, the other kicked by a horse,” Ah Kim qualified.
“A year of her, unworthy son of a noble father, and you would gladly be going out to get drowned or be kicked by a horse.”
Subdued chucklings and laughter from the window audience applauded her point.
“You buried two husbands yourself, revered mother,” Ah Kim was stung to retort.
“I had the good taste not to marry a third. Besides, my two husbands died honourably in their beds. They were not kicked by horses nor drowned at sea. What business is it of our neighbours that you should inform them I have had two husbands, or ten, or none? You have made a scandal of me, before all our neighbours, and for that I shall now give you a real beating.”
Ah Kim endured the staccato rain of blows, and said when his mother paused, breathless and weary:
“Always have I insisted and pleaded, honourable mother, that you beat me in the house, with the windows and doors closed tight, and not in the open street or the garden open behind the house.
“You have called this unthinkable Li Faa the Silvery Moon Blossom,” Mrs. Tai Fu rejoined, quite illogically and femininely, but with utmost success in so far as she deflected her son from continuance of the thrust he had so swiftly driven home.
“Mrs. Chang Lucy told you,” he charged.
“I was told over the telephone,” his mother evaded. “I do not know all voices that speak to me over that contrivance of all the devils.”