bone, and made you pay for the suet he cuts away, it comes to the same thing, and why not GIT it from the rest'rant first off, and save the cost o' your fire? s'd I.""What have you got there under your apron? A bottle?"demanded Lapham, who stood with his hat on and his hands in his pockets, indifferent alike to the ineffective reception of the sailor and the chair Zerrilla had set him.
"Well, yes, it's a bottle," said the woman, with an assumption of virtuous frankness. "It's whisky;I got to have something to rub my rheumatism with.""Humph!" grumbled Lapham. "You've been rubbing HISrheumatism too, I see."
He twisted his head in the direction of the sailor, now softly and rhythmically waving to and fro on his feet.
"He hain't had a drop to-day in THIS house!" cried the woman.
"What are you doing around here?" said Lapham, turning fiercely upon him. "You've got no business ashore.
Where's your ship? Do you think I'm going to let you come here and eat your wife out of house and home, and then give money to keep the concern going?""Just the very words I said when he first showed his face here, yist'day. Didn't I, Z'rilla?" said the woman, eagerly joining in the rebuke of her late boon companion.
"You got no business here, Hen, s'd I. You can't come here to live on me and Z'rilla, s'd I. You want to go back to your ship, s'd I. That's what I said."The sailor mumbled, with a smile of tipsy amiability for Lapham, something about the crew being discharged.
"Yes," the woman broke in, "that's always the way with these coasters. Why don't you go off on some them long v'y'ges? s'd I. It's pretty hard when Mr. Wemmel stands ready to marry Z'rilla and provide a comfortable home for us both--I hain't got a great many years more to live, and I SHOULD like to get some satisfaction out of 'em, and not be beholden and dependent all my days,--to have Hen, here, blockin' the way. I tell him there'd be more money for him in the end; but he can't seem to make up his mind to it.""Well, now, look here," said Lapham. "I don't care anything about all that. It's your own business, and I'm not going to meddle with it. But it's my business who lives off me;and so I tell you all three, I'm willing to take care of Zerrilla, and I'm willing to take care of her mother----""I guess if it hadn't been for that child's father,"the mother interpolated, "you wouldn't been here to tell the tale, Colonel Lapham.""I know all about that," said Lapham. "But I'll tell you what, Mr. Dewey, I'm not going to support YOU.""I don't see what Hen's done," said the old woman impartially.
"He hasn't done anything, and I'm going to stop it.
He's got to get a ship, and he's got to get out of this.
And Zerrilla needn't come back to work till he does.
I'm done with you all."
"Well, I vow," said the mother, "if I ever heard anything like it! Didn't that child's father lay down his life for you? Hain't you said it yourself a hundred times?
And don't she work for her money, and slave for it mornin', noon, and night? You talk as if we was beholden to you for the very bread in our mouths. I guess if it hadn't been for Jim, you wouldn't been here crowin'
over us."
"You mind what I say. I mean business this time,"said Lapham, turning to the door.
The woman rose and followed him, with her bottle in her hand.
"Say, Colonel! what should you advise Z'rilla to do about Mr. Wemmel? I tell her there ain't any use goin' to the trouble to git a divorce without she's sure about him.
Don't you think we'd ought to git him to sign a paper, or something, that he'll marry her if she gits it? I don't like to have things going at loose ends the way they are.
It ain't sense. It ain't right."
Lapham made no answer to the mother anxious for her child's future, and concerned for the moral questions involved.
He went out and down the stairs, and on the pavement at the lower door he almost struck against Rogers, who had a bag in his hand, and seemed to be hurrying towards one of the depots. He halted a little, as if to speak to Lapham; but Lapham turned his back abruptly upon him, and took the other direction.
The days were going by in a monotony of adversity to him, from which he could no longer escape, even at home.
