"I didn't keep still about it,—only I had so much to worry me!" said Nellie, with a shadowy sort of resentment at the little lamplighter's words and manner.
"It's a nice-looking baby!" admitted Mr. Shrimplin, relenting.
"It's a boy, see—he's got his father's eyes and nose—"
"I don't know about the eyes, but the nose is a durn sight whiter than Joe's! Maybe, though, when it's Joe's age it will use the same brand of paint."
"What you got it in for Joe for? He never done nothing to you!" said Joe's wife, with palpable offense.
"He ought to be stood up and lammed over the head with a club!" observed Mr. Shrimplin, with considerable acrimony of tone. "You'd have thought that being a witness would have made a man out of Joe if anything would,—and how does he act? Why, he lights out; he gets to be good for something beside soaking up whisky and spoiling his insides, and he skips the town; now if that ain't a devil of a way for him to act, I'd like to know what you call it!"
"He was a good man—" declared Mrs. Montgomery with conviction. "A good man, but unfortunate!"
"Well, if he suits you, Nellie—"
"He does!"
"I'm glad of it," retorted Mr. Shrimplin, taking a chew of tobacco. "For I don't reckon he'd ever suit any one else!"