She did catch on. He had planted a mine at her feet, he held a match in his hand, he was about to apply it to the fuse, and where would she be?
"Yes," he continued, in assumed dejection, "in order to have this monument I've got to make it fast in my lifetime by the lashings of matrimony. What do you say, Hippolyta, do you think it a good scheme?"
She could say nothing, for she was in utter consternation.
"And then," he continued, reflectively, "I've no objection to a little happiness before I slip over the side of this shaky old ship of Death in Life. I've been watching this son of yours. He likes to be razzled-dazzled, and I'd like to be razzled-dazzled, too, when I come home from the factory after the moil and toil of the day, and the breakneck work of trying to upset every other man in my chase for that last dollar. I'd like to find a comfortable little creature ready to chuck me under the chin and say, 'Lovey dovey, you're the smartest boy of the crowd.'"
This talk seemed immoral to Mrs. Prymmer, yet she was too dazed to resent it. She was going to lose her boarder, and her fingers suddenly grew cold and nervously unplucked the bars of her knitting.
"Lawks-a-daisy!" he exclaimed. "See what you're a-doing, Hippolyta. Here, drop that," and, taking her ravelled work from her, he deposited it on the table.
"Micah," she said, running her tongue over her dry lips, "Micah, who is she?"
"This little monument,—oh, a snug-sized woman a thought over my own age."
"A bold-faced hussy," hissed Mrs. Prymmer.
"Soft, now, soft—don't be hard on her. You may have to live with her, and she's made of the best Maine blue-black slate, warranted to outlast any slate in the world, and that will give you some sharp notches if you run against it."