'What do you mean?'
'What do I mean?' repeated Abraham, 'I mean what I say. I ain't one of those that says one thing and means another. Nobody can accuse me of that.'
'I do not understand you, Abraham.'
'There's none so dull as them that won't take,' he pursued.
'I don't hold, myself, that much good comes of going to church with a man, except this, that you fasten him, and he can't cast you off when he's tired of you.'
Mehalah flushed up.
'Abraham,' she said angrily, 'I will not allow you to speak thus to me. I understand you now, and wish I did not.'
'Oh! you do take at last! That's well. I'd act on it if I was you. A man, you see, don't make no odds of taking up with a girl, and then when he's had a bit of her tongue and temper, he thinks he'd as lief be without her, and pick up another. He'd ring a whole change on the bells, he would, if it warn't for churches. That is my doctrine. Churches was built, and parsons were made, for tying up of men, and the girls are fools who let the men make up to them, and don't seize the opportunity to tie them.'
'Abraham, enough of this.'
'It is no odds to me. I don't care so long as I has my wittles and my wage. Only I'd rather see you mistress here than another. I'd get my wittles more regular and better, because you know me and my likings, and a new one wouldn't. That's all. Every man for himself, is my doctrine.'