"You says to me, says you, 'You come home to-night, Tim, as soon as work's over, and don't go drinking!' You know you did," repeated Timothy in an injured tone.
"And it's a good thing as you have come, or you'd have heard my tongue in a way you wouldn't like!" was Mrs. Carter's reply.
Timothy sighed. That tongue was the two-edged sword of his life: how dreaded, none but himself could tell. He had mounted the table in obedience to orders, but he now got off again.
"What are you after now?" shrilly demanded Mrs. Carter, who was on her knees, scouring the bricks.
"I want my pipe and 'baccy."
"You stop where you are," was the imperative answer, "and wait till I have time to get it;" and Timothy humbly sat down again.
"You might get this done afore night, 'Lizabeth, as I've said over and over again," cried he, plucking up a little spirit. "When a man comes home tired, even if there ain't a bit o' supper for him, he expects a morsel o' fire to sit down to, so as he can smoke his pipe in quiet. It cows him, you see, to find his place in this ruck, where there ain't a dry spot to put the sole of his foot on, and nothing but a table with unekal legs to sit upon, and——"
"I might get it done afore?" shrieked Mrs. Carter. "Afore! When, through that Betsy's laziness, leaving everything on my shoulders, I couldn't get in my gloving till four o'clock this afternoon! Every earthly thing have I had to do since then. I raked out my fire——"
"What's the good of raking out the fire?" interposed Timothy.
"Goodness help the simpleton! Wanting to know the good of raking out the fire—as if he was born yesterday! Can a grate be black-leaded while it's hot, pray?"