'Performance?' echoed Christopher. 'What are you talkin' about?'
'I mean, that bit of a prayer you think it is right to make whenever you're goin' to put your fork to your mouth.'
'Oh! I couldn't imagine what you were driving at. Why do I do it?'
'I'd like to know, ef you think you kin tell.'
'Respectable folk always does it.'
'Hm! I don' know about that. So it's for respectability you keep it up?'
'No,' said Christopher, a little embarrassed how to answer. 'It's proper. Don't you know the Bible bids us give thanks?'
'Wall, hev you set out to du all the rest o' the things the Bible bids you du?—that's jes' what I'm comin' to.'
A surly man would not perhaps have answered at all, resenting this catechizing; but Christopher was not surly, and not at all offended. He was perplexed a little; looked at his wife in some sly wonder at her, but answered not.
'Ef I began, I'd go through. I wouldn't make no half way with it; that's all I was goin' to say,' his wife went on, with a grave face that showed she was not jesting.