"These chaps that jumped over from the Battle-Axe laughed like that," he told her, in great anxiety.
And she giggled more and more.
"Shall I try marmalade?" she asked. Then she sat down by him and went off into something so like hysterics that a mere man might be excused for thinking she was crazy.
"They're not dead!" she cried; "they're not dead!"
"'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!' SHE CRIED; 'THEY'RE NOT DEAD!'"
"Who aren't dead?" asked her husband, desperately.
And, remembering something which had been told him years before, he took her hands and slapped with such severity that she screamed and then cried, and finally put her head upon his shoulder and confessed.
"Was it mutiny of me to do it?" she asked, penitently.
Will Ryder tried to look severe, and then laughed until he cried. "What ever made you think of it?"