Page:The Cow Jerry (1925).pdf/282

 "What're they doin' down there, Windy Moore and the rest of them?" Goosie inquired.

"Shootin' off wind," said Pap, with the lofty derogation of a consciously superior man.

"That's about all'll be shot off, too," said Banjo.

Pap slouched down beside Goosie, who pressed him for particulars. Mrs. Cowgill added her solicitations, but Pap was not to be moved out of his own time and pace. He grunted, a sound expressive of disparagement and slight, indicative of something that could be said by him to the unmasking of much human folly, took a cigar from his vest pocket and began to smoke.

"Herby, I wish you'd go easy on that Tulip Rose brand," his mother said fretfully. "That stock costs me twenty dollars a thousand."

"Guess all I smoke of 'em won't break you," said Pap.

"You can mighty soon smoke off the profit," she reproved him.

"Ain't I payin' my board?" Pap demanded of her with manly insolence.

"It don't include cigars. I'll have to add fifty cents a week extry if you keep on smokin' the way you do. Between you and your daddy I'll be smoked and eat out of house and home one of these days."

As if the mention of him had called him up like a beneficent genius, Myron set foot on the porch that moment. He would have gone in, according to his habit of withdrawing from the family presence, only that his wife hailed him in her sharp, up-catching way.