“Hang it, Fred,” said he, rather brokenly; “how can what’s babyish in men whip a full-grown steamboat captain?”
“The same way that it whipped a full-grown woolen-mill manager once, I suppose, old boy,” said Macdonald.
“Is that so?” exclaimed the captain, astonishment getting so sudden an advantage over shame that he turned over and looked his companion in the face. “Why—how are you, Fred? I feel as if I was just being introduced. Didn’t anybody else help?”
“Yes,” said Fred, “a woman; but—you’ve got a wife, too.”
Crayme fell back on his pillow and sighed. “If I could only think about her, Fred! But I can’t; whiskey’s the only thing that comes into my mind.”
“Can’t think about her!” exclaimed Fred; “why, are you acquainted with her yet, I wonder? I’ll never forget the evening you were married.”
“That was jolly, wasn’t it?” said Crayme. “I’ll bet such sherry was never opened west of the Alleghanies, before or——”
“Hang your sherry!” roared Fred; “it’s your wife that I remember. You couldn’t see her, of course, for you were standing alongside of her; but the rest of us—well, I wished myself in your place, that’s all.”
“Did you, though?” said Crayme, with a smile which seemed rather proud; “well, I guess old Major Pike did too, for he drank to her about twenty times that evening. Let’s see; she wore a white moire antique, I think they called it, and it cost twenty-one dollars a dozen, and there was at least one broken bottle in every——”
“And I made up my mind she was throwing herself away, in marrying a fellow that would be sure to care more for whiskey than he did for her,” interrupted Fred.