"Humph!" grumbled Lapham. "You've been rubbing HIS rheumatism too, I see."
He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet.
"He hain't had a drop to-day in THIS house!" cried the woman.
"What are you doing around here?" said Lapham, turning fiercely upon him. "You've got no business ashore. Where's your ship? Do you think I'm going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home, and then give money to keep the concern going?"
"Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here, yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla?" said the woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion. "You got no business here, Hen, s'd I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla, s'd I. You want to go back to your ship, s'd I. That's what I said."
The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham, something about the crew being discharged.
"Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the way with these coasters. Why don't you go off on some them long v'y'ges? s'd I. It's pretty hard when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden and dependent all my days,--to have Hen, here, blockin' the way. I tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to make up his mind to it."
"Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me; and so I tell you all three, I'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her mother----"
"I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father," the mother interpolated, "you wouldn't been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham."
"I know all about that," said Lapham. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I'm not going to support YOU."