whisky-bottle for the third time. His wife sat behind him very anxious, but not daring to interfere. 'It's going over the table, M.,' she then said.
'D——— the table!' he answered; and then his head fell forward on his breast, and he was fast asleep with the bottle in his hand.
'Put your hand to it, John,' said Mrs. Moulder in a whisper. But John hesitated. The lion might rouse himself if his prey were touched.
'He'll let it go easy if you put your hand to it. 'He's safe enough now. There. If we could only get him back from the fire a little, or his face'll be burnt off of him.'
'But you wouldn't move him?'
'Well, yes; we'll try. I've done it before, and he's never stirred. Come here, just behind. The casters is good, I know. Laws! aint he heavy?' And then they slowly dragged him back. He grunted out some half-pronounced threat as they moved him; but he did not stir, and his wife knew that she was again mistress of the room for the next two hours. It was true that he snored horribly, but then she was used to that.
'You won't let her come up, will you?' said John.
'Why not? She knows what men is as well I do. Smiley wasn't that way often, I believe; but he was awful when he was. He wouldn't sleep it off, quite innocent, like that; but would break everything about the place, and then cry like a child after it. Now Moulder's got none of that about him. The worst of it is, how am I ever to get him into bed when he wakes?'
While the anticipation of this great trouble was still on her mind, the ring at the bell was heard, and John Kenneby went down to the outer door that he might pay to Mrs. Smiley the attention of waiting upon her up stairs. And up stairs she came, bristling with silk—the identical Irish tabinet, perhaps, which had never been turned—and conscious of the business which had brought her.
'What—Moulder's asleep is he?' she said as she entered the room. 'I suppose that's as good as a pair of gloves, any way.'
'He aint just very well,' said Mrs. Moulder, winking at her friend; 'he's tired after a long journey.'
'Oh—h! ah—h!' said Mrs. Smiley, looking down upon the sleeping beauty, and understanding everything at a glance. 'It's uncommon bad for him, you know, because he's so given to flesh.'
'It's as much fatigue as anything,' said the wife.
'Yes, I dare say;' and Mrs. Smiley shook her head. 'If he fatigues himself so much as that often he'll soon be off the hooks.'
Much was undoubtedly to be borne from two hundred a year in a brick-field, especially when that two hundred a year was coming so very near home; but there is an amount of impertinent familiarity which must be put down even in two hundred a year. 'I've known worse cases than him, my dear; and that ended worse.'
