Page:Herbert Jenkins - Bindle.djvu/71

 circumstance on which Mrs. Bindle did not fail to comment.

"You're always spoilin' things for me. I enjoyed those evenin's," she complained.

"Shouldn't have arst me to sing," Bindleretorted. "Yer know I ain't a bloomin' canary like you and 'Earty."

To Mr. Hearty the visits of the Bindles took on a new and more alarming aspect. Sunday was no day for secular things, and he dreaded his brother-in-law's reminiscences and comments on "parsons," and his views regarding religion. Sooner or later Bindle always managed to gather the desultory threads into his own hands.

"Y' oughter been a parson, 'Earty," Bindle remarked pleasantly one Sunday evening apropos nothing. "So ought Ginger, if 'is language wasn't so 'ighly spiced. It's no good lookin' 'appy if you're a parson. Looks as if yer makin' a meal o' the soup in case the fish ain't fresh.

"I remember movin' a parson once," remarked Bindle, puffing away contentedly at a cigar he had brought with him (Mr. Hearty did not smoke), now thoroughly well-launched upon a conversational monologue. "Leastways 'e was a missionary. 'E was due somewhere in Africa to teach niggers 'ow uncomfortable it is to 'ave a soul.

"'E 'ad to go miles into the jungle, and all 'is stuff 'ad to be carried on the 'eads of niggers. Forty pounds a man, and the nigger a-standin'