He had disliked me from the beginning, but there had been no way he could get even. He was "getting even," spiting me, securing my wife by coercion, and now spreading a report that I was mistreating her, in order to justify his action. "Mrs. McCraline," I said, speaking in a firm tone, "Do you believe this?" Evading the direct question, she answered: "You should never have placed yourself or Orlean in such a position." And then I understood. When Orlean had written her mother of the coming of the child, Mrs. McCraline had not written or told the Reverend about it. I now understood, further, that she never told him anything, and never gave him any information if she could avoid it. What my wife had told me was proving itself, that is, that they got along with her father by avoiding any friction. He could not be reasoned with, but I could not believe any man would be mean enough to deliberately break up a home, and that the home of his daughter, for so petty a reason. It became clear to me that he ruled by making himself so disagreeable, that everyone near gave in to him, to have peace. He had only that morning gone to his work. On hearing me, Ethel came downstairs and called up Claves. A few minutes later her mother called me, saying Claves wanted to talk to me. When I took the receiver and called "hello," he answered like a crazy man. I said: "What is the matter? I do not understand what you are talking about." "What are you doing in my house, after what you said about me?" he shouted excitedly. "Said about you?" I asked. "Yes," he replied, "I hear you treated my wife like a dog, after I sent her out there to attend to your wife, called me all kinds of bad names, and said I was only a fifteen-cent jockey." "Treated your wife ugly, and called you a jockey," here I came to and said to myself that here was some more of the elder's work, but I answered Claves: "I haven't the faintest idea of what you are talking about. I treated your wife with the utmost courtesy while she was in Dakota, I never mentioned your name in any such terms as you refer to, and I am wholly at a loss to understand the condition of affairs I find here. I am confused over it all." "Well," he answered, "suppose you come down to where I work and we will talk it over." "I'll do that," I answered, and went down town where he worked on Wabash avenue. One thing I had noticed about him was, that while he was ignorant, he was at least an honest, hard-working fellow, but was kept in fear by his wife and the elder. I saw after talking to him, that he, like Mrs. McCraline, did not believe a word of what the Reverend had told about my mistreating his daughter, and that he submitted to the elder, as the rest of the family did, for the sake of peace. But they were all trained and avoided saying anything about the elder.