"Well, you think again, Lucien, think again. Tommy ain't so old; and it seems to me every man's a bach-e-lor until he gets married. Now, you'd think Tommy'd be fairly bustin' with joy, and maybe he is; I don't know. But he goes around singing all them mournful songs, and, say, you'd ought to hear him singing. Oh, gee! Honest, Lucien, the fog horn over on the Island's a treat to it. Your boss was over once when Tommy was whanging away on oner them songs, and he says, 'Heavens, Tommy, when's the funeral?' and Tommy says, 'Guess again, Simmons,' he says. 'It's for very joy I'm singing.' So your boss says, 'Well, it ain't a fair deal for you to be so all fired joyful as to kill everybody else's joy,' he says; so Tommy shies a book at him, and Simmons ducks, and the book hits a vase and smashes it. Well, you'd think Tommy would be mad at himself and at everybody else because of that, but he laughs and says to Simmons, 'Better the vase than your head, Simmons. Gee! I'm so happy I could smash everything in the place.' So your boss says, 'Wait till your wife begins to try her cookin' on you.' Then Tommy gets after him, and Simmons scoots, and Tommy begins again on Scotch songs; all the slow, sad ones, and, honest, I had to go out too."
"You spend a lot of time there, don't you, William?"
"Sh—sh—Don't be sleuthing around, Lucien, you might find out something, and I'm afraid the blow would kill you. Anyway, I asked my Pa about this love business, and he kinder laughs, and looks at Ma, and she laughs too, like when she's pleased about something, and they kisses each other right there, and Pa says, 'It'll come to you some day, boy, please God, and when it comes——' and then he kisses Ma again and don't finish what he's started to say, and I don't ask him. I know enough anyway to know when Pa ain't going to be no mark for a buncher questions, but it's got me going. There's Miss Whimple loved a fellow when she's young, and he gets carved up by some black fellows in a desert around Egypt somewhere——"
"The Soudan."
"That's the name; who told you?"
"My father's brother is a soldier, and he fought the Dervishes."
"That's the bunch. Say, you certainly know something, Lucien, sometimes. So, Miss Whimple don't get married, and it's the icy mitt for anybody that asked her; and plenty did."
"She's a funny old——"
"You say a word about her, Lucien Torrance, that ain't nice, and I'll knock the head off'n you. She's—she's—well, there ain't another like her except Ma."
"I wasn't going to say anything——" began Lucien.