Further reflections were interrupted by the postman.
“Well, I be glad an’ yet I’m not glad,” Mrs. Tregennis said, when she had come to the end of her letter and passed it over to Daddy.
“He did ought to be shot!” was Tregennis’s fierce comment when he had read to the end of the first page.
“Who did ought to be shot, Daddy?” Tommy’s efforts to balance the sixpenny-bit on the extreme tip of his nose were interrupted while he put the question.
“Miss Margaret’s been gettin’ married, ma lovely,” Mrs. Tregennis told him.
This seemed no explanation to Tommy, and he persisted in his question. “Who did ought to be shot, Daddy?” he repeated.
Tregennis looked across at his wife. “There ain’t no man in this world good enough for Miss Margaret,” he asserted. “He did ought to be shot even for so much as lookin’ at her, but as for wantin’ to marry her—well——.” Here words failed him.
Meanwhile Mrs. Tregennis had taken off the wrapper from an illustrated paper that the postman had brought, too. Turning over the pages, she came to one down which a thick, red line was drawn, and there was Miss Margaret’s likeness just staring her in the face!
Silently Tommy and Tregennis looked as Mrs. Tregennis pointed.
“‘Elliott and Fry,’” read Mrs. Tregennis, meaninglessly.