“Ain’t you ashamed to face us two?” he rasped. “You that run away from _me_ and ruined _him?_” “My sakes!” she cried. “You ain’t so unprofessional as to remember all that silliness against me, are you? I was only a girl then, and you couldn’t expect me to love you--either of you. I’m a poor widow now,” she sighed, “and I need work. You don’t mean to say that you’ve been layin’ up grudges against me all these years--the two of you? What would your wives have said?” “We never got married,” returned Look and Peak in mournful duet. “You’re lucky!” she snapped. “I married a cheap, worthless renegade, and he stole my money and ran away. He fell off a trapeze and broke his neck, and I was glad of it.” “So’m I,” grunted Hiram, casting a soulful glance at Simon. “No, I ain’t, either,” he corrected himself hastily. “I’m sorry he didn’t live to torment you. No,” he roared, “I ain’t sorry for anything, except it was poor Sime Peak’s money the two of you got away with.” Peak sighed. “But I want to say to you, Signory Rosy-elly,” went on Hiram, tipping his hat to one side and hooking his thumb into the armhole of his vest, “it wa’n’t _my_ money you got, and it never will be my money you’ll get. You just made the mistake of your life when you run away from me, and you can chew that cud for the rest of your life.” “He’s got forty thousand dollars in the bank,” hoarsely whispered Simon behind his hand, willing to add his mite to her discomfiture. “Correct!” agreed Hiram. It was really a moment worth waiting for through the years, he reflected. “Twenty can play as well as one,” croaked the parrot, his beady eye pressed between the bars of his cage. The signora glanced up at this new speaker, eyed Absalom with a sage look that he seemed to return, and, after a moment of thought, said: “Thanks for the suggestion, old chap! Three can play as well as two. Now, Look, you know that I’m always outspoken and straight to the point. No tinderhanded bluff for me. I’m going to sue you for ten thousand!” “Crack ’em down, gents!” remarked Absalom with grim patness. Hiram could not resist casting a malevolent stare at the unconscious humourist in the cage. For one startled moment he stared at the woman in fear, and then, recovering composure, tilted his cigar in the corner of his mouth with cocky assurance. “I want to know,” he blurted sarcastically. “Breach of promise, I _per_-sume?” “Good aim! You’ve rung the bell!” replied the lady coolly. The impudence of the bare suggestion fetched a gasp from both men. Hiram was striving to be haughtily indifferent and disdainful. But this thrust was too much for his composure. He felt one of those old-time fits of rage come bristling up the back of his head, the fury of old, when he had tried to wither that same giddy creature in his spasms of jealousy. But she broke in on him with the same icy assurance that used to put him out of countenance.