And Clara exclaimed: “He’s the nicest little man in the world! This time I have flew the coop on him forever.” She smiled at her sheet, so that no one within hearing should be depressed, just because she had troubles. “I don’t know!” said Clara, with her broad, slow smile, “it’s pretty hard for a woman to come home from her day’s work, and find the man stretched on the floor before her sleeping it off. Isn’t it?” she asked, as if by no means sure and wishing to hear what others thought. From behind two sheets: “It certainly is hard!” Rumbling up over McGibney’s sheet: “You hadn’t ought to put up with it! It is hard!” “Isn’t it!” cried Clara, as if crying. “There, I was right, after all! I thought, myself, it was hard, and here’s others thinks the same. And then, when you’re getting along nice, both working and laying by a little, and going to buy the brass lamp in Mason’s window, and get a whole half-ton of coal instead of by the bag, which is robbery, and then he goes out to change the savings into one big bill which you’d never be tempted to break, and comes back in the morning without one cent—” Clara paused. She would not like to be ridiculed for regarding trifles too seriously. “I don’t think he does right by me—does he?” Both sheets agitated. Over both sheets: “He certainly don’t do right by you!” “Does he!” cried Clara, almost excited, also triumphant, hearing her own suspicions verified. “He oughter be ashamed of hisself!” rumbled McGibney. Clara looked up, and there was a slow heavy frown, instead of the slow heavy smile. “There’s worse than him!” she said sharply. “I’ll never speak to him again!” declared Mrs. McGibney. “You might speak to worse, Mrs. McGibney. I’m sure he always spoke most kind of you——” “How could he speak otherwise of me?” demanded Mrs. McGibney in quick anger. “Now! now! now!” rumbled McGibney, thrusting his sheet aside and looking warningly at his wife. “Not making you a sharp answer, Mrs. McGibney,” pursued thick, slow, heavy Clara, “he never said nothing but kind words of you. There’s lots worse than him and he was always a good husband to me, excepting when he was bad, and I hope I’ll never lay my two eyes onto him again.” And Mrs. McGibney looked at the McGibney sheet as if to say, “You’d best always keep quiet!” and her resentment was over, for she was fond of Clara and had known her many years. “I’ll get a pint of beer,” said McGibney. “Can I leave youse two without there being a clinch? You like a little ale in it, don’t you, Clara?” “Don’t never mind me!” said Clara restlessly. “I just remember I left the gas burning and him sleeping his buns off. Do you think the gas would go out and then start up again and not burning? I’ve heard tell of such cases. Not meaning to go back to him, maybe I’d better go back and turn the gas out.”