Mrs. Prymmer's lower jaw got beyond her control, and began to sag hopelessly. If another bride were introduced into her house she might as well be thinking of her own tombstone.
"Come, now, what'll you take her for?" said Captain White, waggishly. "Your lowest bid."
The mention of money was a slight restorative. "Twenty dollars apiece," gasped a cracked voice, "twenty dollars apiece."
"Come, now, Hippolyta, that's hard on her. She'll be as mute to you as a stained-glass window. She ain't like me. She'll never trouble you coming in late at night or nagging about her food."
Mrs. Prymmer angrily hurled a boarding-house sentiment at him, "I'd rather take twenty men than one woman."
"That don't sound proper," he replied, rebukingly, "and shows a staggering amount of ignorance of men-critters. Why, if you knew the badness of me, for example, you'd turn me out of your house to-morrow."
"I don't believe it," she said, stoutly.
"It's true, Hippolyta. If you knew what diabolical, heathenish things men are up to you'd scream from morning to night, and only stop long enough to take refreshments."
Again her husky voice assured him that she didn't believe him.
"Do you believe the newspapers?"