******
At the supper-table that night Mrs. Lane repeated Abiram Slocum’s message to her husband, and he, rubbing his chin with a troubled air, replied, “Truth be told, Lauretta Ann, owin’ to the burnin’ of that furniture there isn’t a cent left to pay that claim, and I do hate to have poor O’More held up as an insolvent around here for sixty dollars, ’count o’ Bird. He was a good-natured, harmless sort o’ feller, enjoyin’ of himself as he went, very much like I’d be if you hadn’t taken up with me, Mis’is Lane.”
At this compliment Mrs. Lane blushed like a girl and murmured something about all men bein’ the better for women’s handling, provided it was the right woman, which Mis’is Slocum wasn’t.
“Now as far as that sixty dollars goes, if it wasn’t owed to ’Biram Slocum, I’d undertake ter pay it myself, so as to get the receipt and settle everything square up and clean billed, but, by jinks, it sticks me to pay that low-down swindler.”
“Joshua Lane!” cried his wife, in a tragic tone, standing up and pointing her pudgy finger at him with such a jerk that it made him start as if it had been a bayonet, while she used the most grandiloquent language she could muster: “The estate of the late lamented Terence O’More does not owe Abiram Slocum a bent penny, and as to the receipt for the same, I’ll hand it to you this time to-morrow night, leastwise if it doesn’t blow a blizzard ’twixt now and then, or Mis’is Slocum turn ’Biram into pickled peppers by the sight of the face she wore home from the auction.”
“Come now, Lauretta Ann,” wheedled Joshua, “you ain’t minded of paying it, be ye? I’d think twice—that I would.”
“Pay!” snorted Lauretta. “Don’t I tell you there’s nothin’ owed?”
“You’re talkin’ an’ actin’ enigmas and charades. Not thet it’s anything new, but if I was you, I’d be mighty keerful how I baited ’Biram Slocum; he is too cute for most men, and he would take to the law for a heedless word jest now, he’s that riled about the wardrobe story leakin’ out and losing the fruit farm.”
“That’s all right, and don’t you fret, Joshua; if there is any law called in, it’ll be by me.” And pump and quiz as he might, not another word could he extract from his wife upon the subject.