Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/32

 "Down'earted! Y' ought to be ashamed o' yerself," exploded Mrs. Bindle, as she banged the saucepan upon its shelf and seized a broom. Bindle regarded her with expressionless face. "Y' ought to be ashamed o' yerself, yer great hulkin' brute."

At one time Bindle, who was well below medium height and average weight, had grinned appreciatively at this description; but it had a little lost its savour by repetition.

"Call yerself a man!" she continued, her sharp voice rising in volume and key. "Leavin' me to keep the sticks together—me, a woman too, a-keepin' you in idleness! Why, I'd steal 'fore I'd do that, that I would."

She made vigorous use of the broom. Her anger invariably manifested itself in dust, a momentary forgetfulness of her religious convictions, and a lapse into the Doric. As a rule she was careful and mincing in her speech, but anger opened the flood-gates of her vocabulary, and words rushed forth bruised and decapitated.

With philosophic self-effacement Bindle covered the few feet between him and the door and vanished. He was a philosopher and, like Socrates, he bowed to the whirlwind of his wife's wrath. Conscious of having done everything humanly possible to obtain work, he faced the world with unruffled calm.

Mrs. Bindle's careless words, however, sank deeply into his mind. Steal! Well, he had no