in the wilderness, just so that he can make some woman happy"
Slicker swallowed his berry with the air of one who needed some support.
"Maybe a girl who can see her back-hair in a hand-glass without getting lock-jaw isn't fitted by nature to look at life straight," he said. "You get Miss Chubb down at the Mission to tell you if she hasn't reason to consider that she's done her possible by the race if she can teach them to put their clothes on to the right parts of themselves and to blow their noses. And you ask Tempest right now how long it would be before an M.P. got acquainted with the inside of his coffin if he attempted to scour the land with an old uniform or anything else without letting up for meals. And the breeds wouldn't take another job if you went on your knees to 'em. They like it. And"
Tempest moved nervously. Would Slicker's tongue carry him into dangerous latitudes? But Jennifer's rare temper was waking.
"Boys think it so clever to make fun of everything," she said. "They haven't imagination enough to see the true, wonderful beauty of life. I can see a little—just a little. And I'm going to tell the world. I'm going to write some articles for a Toronto paper. I began last night."
"Do. I reckon it would be well to get all that stuff out of your system right away. And then put 'em in the stove. But be careful, for I guess there will be plenty hot air in 'em to burst the pipes."
Jennifer whipped round on him like a kitten about to spring.
"You—you—you animal!" she cried. "Come off my table this instant! Stop eating my berries. Don't sit there with your hair all over your head, staring like that! And don't you dare put your feet on my carpet. They're mud up to the elbows!"
"Sakes!" said Slicker, bewildered into alarm for the first time in his life. "I can't jump right out of here in once."
For an instant more Jennifer's temper possessed her.
