I held him right there with my eye till I got an answer.
“But he is a fool,” sez he.
Sez I, “Fools don’t generally write sech good sense, Martin.”
Sez he wrathfully, “I knew your opinions—I expected you’d uphold him in his ungrateful folly.
“But he has lost Alice by it,” sez he; “for I never will give my consent to have him marry her.”
Sez I, “Then you had never ort to let him come here and have the chance to win her heart, and now break it, for,” sez I, “you encouraged him at first, Martin.”
“I know I did,” sez he—“I thought I had found one honest man, and I had decided on giving all my business into his hands. It would have been the making of him,” sez he; “but he has only himself to blame, for if he had kept still he would have married Alice, but now he shall not.”
Sez I, “Alice thinks jest as he duz.”
“What do women know about business?” he snapped out, enough to take my head off.
“If wimmen don’t know anything about bizness, Martin, I should think you’d be glad to know, in case you left Alice, that she and her immense fortune wuz in the hands of an honest man.