“It’s too badly smashed for that. But they won’t blame me—I mean to hold me responsible for anything that father——” “But the disgrace! Oh, my Gawd! Think o’ what this means to me!” The wife turned angrily. “And little Mary!” she snapped over her shoulder. “I couldn’t help it, Milly. I didn’t know dad was going to loot the business.” “Seems to me you oughta been smart enough to stop it—somehow. I used to think you was awful smart, once. But you certainly fooled me, Nat. You fooled me good.” “Thanks!” “Don’t give me none o’ your cheap lip!” Nathan stood with hands clasped behind, face sadly downcast, looking at his wife’s back. Milly was stouter than when she had worked in the box-shop. She had also coarsened. Her washed-out hair was gathered in a hasty knot at the back of her neck. “Scolding locks” stuck out at wild angles. The back of that neck was flat and homely. She wore a gingham house dress that was torn in the front and she could have materially improved her appearance by discarding her apron. “Well,” she demanded, without looking around, “if the shop ain’t going to start up, what you aimin’ to do?” “I haven’t thought that far yet. Get a job, probably. Go to work!” “S’pose old Gridley would set you up in somethin’?” “I wouldn’t ask him, even if he would.” “But what about me, I say? What about Mary?” “You won’t starve. I’ll see to that.” “You’ll see to that! Huh! You couldn’t even see yourself out of jail! Gridley had to come clean from California and see it for you!” “Milly, don’t let’s have any argument to-night. Please! I’m nearly all in.” “So am I all in! You never give a thought about me!” “Is there anything to eat in the house?” was Nat’s way of turning the edge of the altercation. Milly shrugged her shoulders. Nathan went out into the cluttered, odorous kitchen and hunted around for food. He found a stale frankfurter and a piece of soggy pie. He drew a glass of cold water and sat down to satisfy his hunger with the indigestible mess. “Mary cut her finger this afternoon,” announced the wife. “I had to get Doc Johnson to see to it.” Milly, it had developed, was one of those persons who summon a doctor for every indisposition known to medicine from plain old-fashioned stomachache to falling off the roof and breaking a neck. “I’ve got something else to think about now, Milly, besides Mary cutting her finger.” “Yeah! I s’pose you have. You’re just like your father. A devil of a lot you care about your women folks!” Milly rammed the fire angrily and poked most of the live coals through into the ash-pan. “The fire’s out!” she snapped. “And there ain’t any wood.” “But I gave you money to buy wood only last Friday.” “Dad’s out o’ work. Nellie’d have to give up her pianner lessons if Ma didn’t have money from somewheres till dad’s took on again. I loaned it to her. Blood’s a little thicker in our family than it is in yours, Nat Forge!”