"If you don't go away and let me alone now, I'll throw these tongs at you!" the wife rejoined, angrily, rising up and brandishing the article she had named. "You are trying me beyond all manner of patience!"
"There—there—keep cool, Sally. It'll all go into your lifetime, darlin'," Jim replied, good-humouredly, taking hold of her hand, and extricating the tongs from them, and then drawing his arm around her waist, and forcing her to sit down in a chair, while he took one just beside her.
"Now, Sally, I'm in dead earnest, if ever I was in my life," he began, "and if you'll tell me any way to break off from this wretched habit into which I have fallen, I'll do it."
"Go and sign the pledge, then;" his wife said promptly, and somewhat sternly.
"And give up my liberty?"
"And regain it, rather. You're a slave now."
"I'll do it, then, for your sake."
"Don't trifle with me, any more, James; I can't bear it much longer, I feel that I can't—" poor Mrs. Braddock said in a plaintive tone, while the tears came to her eyes.
"I wont deceive you any more, Sally. I'll sign, and I'll keep my pledge. If I could only have said—'I've signed the pledge,' yesterday, I would have been safe. But I've got no pledge, and I'm afraid to go out to hunt up Malcom, for fear I shall see a grog-shop."
"Can't you write a pledge?"