“And why didn’t you come to dinner?” he blandly demanded, opening the war.
“Dinner! I declare I never thought of it till this minute,” exclaimed Harrington, coloring a little.
“It was a brile to-day, John,” pursued the Captain, contemplatively, smoking. “Briled steak, potatoes, spinach, with a top off of bread puddin’ and coffee,” he continued, pensively enumerating the components of the meal. “Together with bread and butter, and apple-sarce. Joel James eat till he thought his jacket was buttoned. Hannah says, ‘I wonder where John is?’ Sophrony answers, ‘he’s in his room, for I see him go in at eleven o’clock.’ ‘Better call him,’ says John H. ‘Better not,’ says I, ‘or you’ll scatter some of his idees.’ So we didn’t.”
Harrington listened attentively to this account of the family colloquy on his absence from the dinner-table. Joel James was the Captain’s son, a sturdy schoolboy of ten. Sophronia was his daughter, a girl of fifteen. John H. was the youngest son, named after Harrington. Hannah was the Captain’s wife.
“John,” said the Captain, changing the subject, “two hundred and fifty’s not enough. I’m goin’ to raise it to three hundred.”
“Good!” exclaimed Harrington, with a jovial air. “I knew it was the rent! Eldad, this rent is our standing grievance. Well, I’m going to lower it to two hundred.”
“In which event, I’m going to move, bag and baggage,” retorted the Captain.
Harrington laughed aloud, and sat smiling at the Captain, whose quaint features were screwed into a grin, and momently lit in little flashes of red from the bowl of the pipe near his cheek.
“Eldad,” replied Harrington, “if I had my way, you should have the house rent free.”
“Which I wunt,” said the Captain.