Page:Poor Cecco - 1925.djvu/101

Rh at the ceiling again, unable to say a word, while his whiskers bristled more and more, his eyes grew rounder and rounder, and his whole body swelled up as if he were going to burst.

At last he recovered sufficiently to say, in a very angry voice:

“Wipe your feet when you come in at the door!”

This seemed to Poor Cecco unnecessary, considering he had come by the roof, but as he felt himself to be in the wrong, in any case, he began at once to excuse himself for his entrance.

“Rubbish!” said the woodchuck. “No sensible person keeps their front door in the ceiling! When you don’t see what you want, ask for it, and don’t go blundering about like that!”

Mrs. Woodchuck, who had said nothing all this while, but after one glance went on calmly slicing vegetables, now addressed her husband without looking up.

“It’s all your own shiftlessness!” she said. “Didn’t I tell you a dozen times, if I’ve told you once, that if you didn’t hike yourself up there and do something to that roof before the bad weather set in anything was liable to beat in on us? But there you set, and if the house itself fell in you wouldn’t lift a finger except to blame some one else. Don’t talk to me about it!”

Mr. Woodchuck, at this, seemed to sink down in his chair. He cast a timid glance at his wife, and hastily