Peckaby grinned; the reply amused him much. "You poor ignorant creatur," cried he, "you have got your head up in a mad-house; and that's about it. You know Mary Green?"
"Well?" answered she, looking surprised at this divertissement.
"And you know Nancy from Verner's Pride as is gone off," he continued, "and you know half a dozen more nice young girls about here, which you can just set on and think of. How 'ud you like to see me marry the whole of 'em, and bring 'em home here? Would the house hold the tantrums you'd go into, d'ye think?"
"You hold your senseless tongue, Peckaby! A man 'ud better try and bring home more nor one wife here! The law 'ud be on to him."
"In course it would," returned Peckaby! "And the law knowed what it was about when it made itself into the law. A place with more nor one wife in it 'ud be compairable to nothing but that blazing place you've heerd on as is under our feet, or the Salt Lake City."
"For shame, you wicked man!"
"There ain't no shame, in saying that; it's truth," composedly answered Peckaby. "Brother Jarrum said, didn't he, as the wives had a parlour a-piece. Why do they? 'Cause they be obleeged to be kep' apart, for fear o' damaging each other, a-tearing and biting and scratching, and a-pulling of eyes out. A nice figure you'd cut among 'em! You'd be a-wishing yourself home again afore you'd tried it for a day. Don't you be a fool, Susan Peckaby."
"Don't you!" retorted she. "I wonder you ain't afraid o' some judgment falling on you. Lies is sure to come home to people."
"Just take your thoughts back to the time as we had the shop here, and plenty o' custom in it. One day you saw me just a-kissing of a girl in that there corner—leastways you fancied as you saw me," corrected Peckaby, coughing down his slip. "Well, d'ye recollect the scrimmage? Didn't you go a'most mad, never keeping' your tongue quiet for a week, and the place hardly holding of ye? How 'ud you like to have eight or ten more of 'em, my married wives, like you be, brought in here?"
"You are a fool, Peckaby. The cases is different."