“You poor, low-lived Dutchman, you!” she brought out with deliberation.  “What d’you mean layin’ your hand to a woman who hasn’t the stren’th or the spirit to turn to, an’ lick you back?  Why don’t you fight a fella your own size an’ sect?  That’s fair play!  A fine man you are!  A fine neighbor you are!  Just let me hear a peep out of you, an’ I’ll thrash you this minit to within a inch of your life. I don’t need no law nor no policeman to keep the peace in any house where I live.  I can keep the peace myself, if I have to lick every tenant in the place!  I’m the law an’ the policeman on my own account, an’ if you budge from that floor till I tell you get up, I’ll come over there an’ set down on ye so hard, your wife won’t know you from a pancake in the mornin’.  I’ll show you the power o’ the press!"

Sam Slawson was no coward, but his face was pallid with consternation at Martha’s hardihood.  His mighty bulk, however, seeming to supplement hers, had its effect on the sobered German.  He did not attempt to rise.

“As to you, you poor weak sister,” said Mrs. Slawson, turning to the wife, “you’ve had your last lickin’ so long as you live in this house.  Believe me! I’m a hard-workin’ woman, but I’m never too tired or too busy to come in an’ take a round out of your old man, if he should ever dare lay finger to you again. I don’t mind a friendly scrap oncet in a while with a neighbor.  My muscles is good for more than your fat, beer-drinkin’ Dutchman’s any day.  Let him up an’ try ’em oncet, an’ he’ll see.  Why don’t you have some style about you an’ land him one, where it’ll do the most good, or else—­leave him?  But no, you wouldn’t do that—­I know you wouldn’t!  Some women has to cling to somethin’, no matter if they have to support it themselves.”

Mrs. Langbein’s inarticulate sobbing had passed into a spasmodic struggle for breathless utterance.

“He—­don’t mean—­no harm, Mis’ Slawson.  He’s all right—­ven he’s soper.  Only—­it preaks my heart ven he vips me, und I don’t deserve it.”

“Breaks your heart?  It ain’t your heart I’m worryin’ about.  If he don’t break your bones you’re in luck!”

“Und I try to pe a goot vife to him.  I tend him hand und foot.”

“Ye-es, I know you do,” returned Martha dryly.  “But suppose you just try the foot in the future.  See how it works.”

“I to my pest mit dryin’ to pe a goot cook.  I geep his house so glean as a bin.  Vat I don’t do, Gott weiss, I don’t know it.  I ain’t esk him for ein tcent already.  I ain’t drouble him mit pills off of de grocer oder de putcher, oder anny-von.  I makes launtry efery veek for some liddle peoples, und mit mine own money I bays my pills.  Ven you dell me how it iss I could make eferyting more smoother for him, I do it!”