"None of you know what you are talking about," Witherspoon declared. "I'm as strong as I ever was. I'm simply annoyed, that's all."
"Why don't you see the doctor?" his wife asked.
"What do I want to see him for? What does he know about it? Don't you worry. I'm all right."
His fretfulness was not continuous. Sometimes his spirits rose to exceeding liveliness, and then he laughed at the young man and joked him about Miss Miller. But a single word, however lightly spoken, served to turn him back to peevishness. One evening Henry remarked that he was compelled to leave town on the day following and that he might be absent nearly a week.
"Why, how is this?" Witherspoon asked, with a sudden change of manner. "The other day you almost swore that it was impossible for you to leave home, and now you are compelled to go. What do you mean?"
"I have business out of town, and it demands my attention."
"Business out of town. The other day you despised business; now you've got business out of town. I'll take an oath right now that you are the strangest mortal I ever struck."
"I admit the appearance of inconsistency," Henry replied.
"And I know the existence of it," Witherspoon rejoined.
"You think so. The truth is that the affair I now have on hand had something to do with my objecting to leave town last week."