“Yeh! I’ve heard so before,” grunted her angry husband.
“Poor Algernon understands a woman’s sensitive nerves far better than you ever can, Ebeneezer,” continued Mrs. Alexander.
That was a little too much for the annoyed man’s temper. He sat glaring across the car at the inoffensive, blonde-pated, insignificant young man, and snorted so that Polly and Eleanor plainly heard what he said. “If your beau-ideal understands anything, he kin understand you, all right, Maggie—’cause there ain’t so much to understand as you’d like to think!”
This was a trifle too deep for Mrs. Alexander’s intelligence, but she felt the sarcasm in his tone, and she resented the use he made of her detested first name.
“Mr. Alexander! how often must I inform you that my name is not ‘Maggie’—I am to be called ‘Marguerite,’ or nothing! I ought to know my own name, I reckon!”
“It usta be Maggie long enough, afore I struck that pay dirt! If I hadn’t piled up money in spite of myself sence then, you’d still be plain Maggie Alexander, doin’ your own washin’ and cookin’, and not a thought of chasin’ young fellers for Dodo to marry.”
“Don’t you dare remind me of those horrible days!” cried Mrs. Alexander, her face red as a peony, as she glanced covertly around to assure herself that no one else had overheard her husband’s revelations.
“I wouldn’t hurt your feelin’s, if you’d behave and not drag these ever-lastin’ dudes around the country, tryin’ to tag ’em to Dodo’s apron-strings. That gal’s as much mine as she is yourn, and I got a word to say about the man she wants to marry! Remember that, Maggie!”
Once more his wife looked daggers at him, and then she reiterated: “I’ll have you call me Marguerite, or nothing at all, Mr. Alexander!”
“So be it! I’ll remember to call you ‘Nothin’-at-all’ after this, but I swear I shan’t call you no high-falutin names like Marguerite! It’d gag me—tryin’ to fit such a fancy name onto my plain, old wife!” As he dropped this last bomb, Mr. Alexander got up and went forward to the smoking compartment.