"I have never told you much of my past life, except from a business point, have I?" He smiled naively, and, taking a chair, he became seated, placed his feet in the window, and proceeded to narrate a part of his past. "I've been married twice," he began. "Oh, twice...." "Yes. My first wife died. We lived on a farm in South Carolina, and were as happy a couple as you ever knew. I owned a two-horse farm, and raised plenty of cotton and corn and some hogs, while my wife raised plenty of chickens and garden truck. We had two boys, whom I kept in school in town during the winter. And then, after my crops were laid by, my wife looked after the place, while I went out and sold song books and pictures, and preached." "Then you're a preacher, too," said Wyeth, when he paused a moment. "I didn't think you were a preacher," he continued, looking him over. "Well, not altogether. I preach sometimes, but not much since I married the last woman." "How's that?" "To tell you the truth, that woman almost made me lose my religion, she was such a devil." Wyeth was silent, but attentive. Slim went on. "Didn't you meet my brother? He was here not long ago. I had him up here in the office. You might have seen him about the building here. You could not have mistaken him for any one else, if you had seen him." "Does he look like you?" "Lord, no!" Slim exclaimed, with a laugh. "Not at all. And you would not have believed it; but ten years ago he was as spare as I am. Then he went to preaching, and since then he has become the fattest thing you ever saw." Wyeth smiled naively. Coleman proceeded with his interrupted narrative. "Well, getting back to that _woman_; I married her four months after my first wife died, and took her to live in the same house. We got along less than three weeks in peace. Then things began to warm up. She was a devil, if there ever was one on top of the earth, but I persisted faithfully." His appearance was now very pious. "The first big row we had was on Sunday. It was in the morning, and I, with my Bible under my arm, was starting to church. She didn't want to go that day, and had tried to keep me from going; but I always led the prayer, and preached during the pastor's absence, so, as I was saying, I was starting for church. When I passed a room in which she had enclosed herself to pout, she suddenly opened it, and hit me in the side with a big rock. If it had not struck the Bible, I think I would have been hurt seriously; but it hit the book and my arm, and rolled upon the floor.