Mrs. Porter gave a little warning cough. In his zealousness Mr. Dolman might anger her husband, then his logic would avail little.
“The men are like the horses,” commented Porter, “some bad and some good. They average about the same as they do in anything else, mostly good, I think. Of course, when you get a bad one he stands out and everybody sees him.”
“And sometimes horses—and men, too, I suppose—get a bad name when they don't deserve it,” added Allis. “Everybody says Lauzanne is bad, but I know he's not.”
“That was a case of this dreadful dishonesty,” said Mrs. Porter, speaking hastily. She turned in an explanatory way to Crane. “You know, Mr. Crane, last summer a rascally man sold my husband a crooked horse. Now, John, what are you laughing at?” for her husband was shaking in his chair.
“I was wondering what a crooked horse would look like,” he answered, and there were sobs in his voice.
“Why, John, when you brought him home you said he was crooked.”
As usual, Allis straightened matters out: “It was the man who was crooked. Mother means Lauzanne,” she continued.
“Yes,” proceeded the good woman, “a Mr. Langdon, I remember now, treated my husband most shamefully over this horse.”
Crane winced. He would have preferred thumbscrews just then. “John is honest himself,” went on Mrs. Porter, “and he believes other men, and this horse had some drug given him to make him look nice, so that my husband would buy him.”
“Shameful,” protested Dolman. “Are men allowed to give horses drugs?” he appealed to Mr. Porter.