"Yes, madam, that is my name," was his reply.
"I have come, Mr. Muddler," the woman then said, with an effort to smile and affect a polite air, "to thank you for a present I received last night."
"Thank me, madam! There certainly must be some mistake. I never made you a present. Indeed, I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance."
"You said your name was Muddler, I believe?"
"Yes, madam, as I told you before, that is my name."
"Then you are the man. You made my little girl, here a present also, and we have both come with our thanks."
"You deal in riddles, madam, Speak out plainly."
"As I said before," the woman replied, with bitter irony in her tones, "I have come with my little girl to thank you for the present we received last night;—a present of wretchedness and abuse."
"I am still as far from understanding you as ever," the tavern-keeper said—I never abused you, madam. I do not even know you."
"But you know my husband, sir! You have enticed him to your bar, and for his money have given him a poison that has changed him from one of the best and kindest of men, into a demon. To you, then, I owe all the wretchedness I have suffered, and the brutal treatment I shared with my helpless children last night. It is for this that I have come to thank you."