"Don't do that! You look like the Goddess of Liberty trying to peek into the Subway."
But she did not hear him. She was rummaging for the soap and for an answer to his first remark. At length she emerged with both. She stood up and panted.
"Well, I can't see as it would 'a' done me any good if I had have!"
"Had have what?" her husband yawned, having forgotten his original remark.
"Got the Sphinnix on top of the Cheops. And besides, I've been meaning to hem them up; but now that you've gone bankrupt again, and I have to do my own cooking and all—"
"But, my dear Serina, you've said the same thing ever since we were married. What frets me is to think of the terrible waste of labor with nothing to show for it."
She sniffed, and retorted with all the superiority of the unsuccessful wife of an unsuccessful husband:
"Well, I can't see as you're so smart. Ever since we been married you been goin' to that stationery-store of yours, and you never learned enough to keep from going bankrupt three times. And now they've shut the shop, and you've nothing better to do than lay in bed and make fun of me that have slaved for you and your children."
They were always his children when she talked of the trouble they were. Her all too familiar oration was interrupted by the eel-like leap of the soap. This time it described a graceful arc that landed it under the middle of the bed—a double bed at that.
Pepperall had the gallantry to pursue it. He went head first over the starboard quarter of the deck, leaving his feet aboard. Just as he tagged the soap with his fingers his feet came on over after him, and he found himself flat on his back, with his head under the bed and his feet under the bureau.