On Monday I have seen Susan shed tears of regret into the Brussels sprouts, that she had been debarred by the pressure of other duties from lately watering “his” grave, which, I gathered, was at Manor Park. While on Tuesday I have listened, blood chilled, to the recital of her intentions should she ever again enjoy the luxury of getting her fingers near the scruff of his neck.
“But, I thought, Susan, he was dead,” was my very natural comment upon this outbreak.
“So did I, Master Paul,” was Susan's rejoinder; “that was his artfulness.”
“Then he isn't buried in Manor Park Cemetery?”
“Not yet; but he'll wish he was, the half-baked monkey, when I get hold of him.”
“Then he wasn't a good man?”
“Who?”
“Your husband.”
“Who says he ain't a good man?” It was Susan's flying leaps from tense to tense that most bewildered me. “If anybody says he ain't I'll gouge their eye out!”
I hastened to assure Susan that my observation had been intended in the nature of enquiry, not of assertion.