“Amen,” said Frank; “glory be to his name for it!”
“But, Frank,” said Art, “there's one thing that I often wonder at, an' indeed so does every one a'most.”
“What is that, Art?”
“Why, that you don't think o' marryin'. Sure you have good means to keep a wife, and rear a family now; an' of coorse we all wonder that you don't.”
“Indeed, to tell you the truth, Art, I don't know myself what's the raison of it—the only wife I think of is my business; but any way, if you was to see the patthern of married life there is undher the roof wid me, you'd not be much in consate wid marriage yourself, if you war a bachelor.”
“Why,” inquired the other, “don't they agree?”
“Ay do they, so well that they get sometimes into very close an' lovin' grips togather; if ever there was a scald alive she's one o' them, an' him that was wanst so careless and aisey-tempered, she has now made him as bad as herself—has trained him regularly until he has a tongue that would face a ridgment. Tut, sure divil a week that they don't flake one another, an' half my time's, taken up reddin' them.”
“Did you ever happen to get the reddin' blow? eh? ha, ha, ha!”
“No, not yet; but the truth is, Art, that an ill-tongued wife has driven many a husband to ruin, an' only that I'm there to pay attention to the business, he'd be a poor drunken beggarman long ago, an' all owin' to her vile temper.”
“Does she dhrink?”