"I don't know what's got into Pa!" his wife complained.
"Don't you care, Uncle Chess," Marguerite submitted with timid sympathy.
"Oh, no, sure I don't care," the man said with a short laugh. "Of course it's nothing to me! A man comes home to his own folks, he's had a tough time—" His voice sank huskily. The sleeves of his coat were too short for him, and Julia noticed how thin his wrists were, as he gathered up his newspaper clippings and restored them to his inside pocket. The women watched him in silence. Presently he stooped down and kissed his mother's forehead, at the edge of her untidy, grizzled hair.
"Good-bye, Ma!" he said. "Good-bye, girls!"
"It'll be a judgment on your father," Mrs. Cox protested. "I don't know what's gotten into him!"
But she made no further objection; she did not get up from her place at table when Chester crossed the kitchen, opened the street door, and went out.
"Grandpa's a prince, all right!" said Marguerite then, and Evelyn added, "Wouldn't it give you a pain?"
"But I notice that none of us did anything about it!" Julia said bitterly.
"If your grandpa found Chess here when he got home to-night, there'd be a reckoning!" the old woman asserted dully.
"And what is Uncle Chess supposed to do?" Julia demanded.