He grasped his hammer in an eminently suggestive way. What he said was probably correct. He had the reputation, a well-deserved one, of being a man with whom one would joke with difficulty and danger.
"All the same, Mr Tyler, the statement on this paper is ridiculously incorrect. Mrs Bloxam, my wife, is not a candidate; she has no intention of becoming a candidate; and, I may say at once, that under no circumstances would I permit her to do so. Especially in opposition to me, her husband. The idea is really too ridiculous for contemplation. I beg you will dismiss it at once and finally from your mind."
I prepared to start. He held my horse's head.
"But suppose she is a candidate, what then?"
"You don't flatter me, Mr Tyler. Should you allow your wife to act in direct antagonism to your wishes?"
"I reckon not." He grinned significantly. "Then shall you leather Mrs Bloxam if she tries any of her little games? I rather fancy you'll find you've put off leathering her too long. They want a lot of strap when you're first starting."
What did the fellow mean? How dare he talk to me like that? Really, this business was bringing me on terms of uncomfortable familiarity with the most curious characters. Leather Mrs Bloxam! I shivered at the thought. What did he take me for? And her? Henrietta is not the sort of person to whom it is necessary to do more than remotely hint at what are the channels in which the course of a wife's duty flows. And yet--
I wished the fellow had never shown me his wretched, nonsensical, trumpery paper, which he had apparently stolen from the imbecile Briggs. As though my mind was not already sufficiently occupied. If I had dreamt that this preposterous School-Board business would have been such a source of worry, so far as I was concerned Crookenden and his Church school might have gone on for ever. In my agitation--I am agitated, sometimes, by a very little--I touched Toby with the whip, so that, when I got him home, he was in quite a lather.
Mrs Bloxam was in her own sitting-room. I found her there. I had worked myself into something approaching a state of indignation. I produced Tyler's handbill with a sort of flourish.
"Henrietta, some scoundrel has been taking liberties with your name."