"You weak and delicate!" retorted her husband, contemptuously. "So is a ostrich."
"Where's Bruiser? Why didn't you call him?"
Mrs. Tarbox had not witnessed the untimely fate of that amiable quadruped.
At the mention of Bruiser her husband's wrath again overflowed.
"He's dead!" he shouted. "That brute killed him."
"How did he do it?" asked his wife, not without curiosity, for she knew the bull-dog's strength.
"Kicked him to death! That's how he did it."
"He must be very strong," murmured Mrs. Tarbox. "Don't you think we ought to erect a gravestone over Bruiser," she continued, "just as I did over that sweet canary? A piece of board would do, you know."
"Perhaps you'd like to write some lines for it," remarked Mr. Tarbox, sarcastically.
"I was thinking, Nathan, we could put something like this: