"Serves you right, Hippolyta," remarked Captain White. "You brought it on yourself."
Mrs. Prymmer's countenance expressed unmitigated indignation.
"Hadn't you better give up that style of praying?" he inquired. "It's a trifle old-fashioned. They don't herd sinners into the kingdom that way now, and besides, see what poor success you've had with me. Twenty years you've been praying at me, and I drink, and dance, and fight just the same as ever. 'Pon my word, it makes me want to act worse to listen to you."
Mrs. Prymmer was not convinced. She began putting out the lights for the night, thinking thereby to force her cousin to beat a retreat into the hall.
"Quit that," he ejaculated. "Am I a twenty-dollar-a-week boarder to have the gas turned off in my face?"
"I didn't mean to rile you, Micah," she said, immediately lighting up again.
"All right, Hippolyta,—I'll not be long. I just want to discuss this reprobate business. You've got to stop calling me names. If you can't pray like a lady you can hold your tongue."
"Micah," she stammered, "it is for your soul's good."
"Soul be fiddlesticked! Can you doctor a sick soul when you send a body's temper flying all over the place?"
"I—I don't know."