“That’s eggsackly the trouble,” proclaimed Mrs. Slawson conclusively.  “You make ’em too smooth.  You make ’em so smooth, they’re ackchelly slippery.  No wonder the poor fella falls down.  No man wants to spend all his life skatin’ round, doin’ fancy-figger stunts, because his wife’s a dummy.  Let’m get down to hard earth, an’ if he kicks, heave a rock at’m.  He’ll soon stand up, an’ walk straight like a little man.  Let him lend a hand with the dooty-business, for a change.  It’ll take his attention off’n himself, give’m a rest from thinkin’ he’s an angel, an’ that you hired out, when you married’m, to shout ‘Glory!’ every time he flaps a wing!  That sort o’ thing ain’t healthy for men.  It don’t agree with their constitutions—­An’ now, good-night to you, an’ may you have sweet dreams!  Mr. Langbein, I ain’t the slightest objeckshun to your gettin’ up, if you want to.  You know me now.  I’m by the day, as you may have heard.  But I can turn my hand to an odd job like this now an’ then by the night, if it’s necess’ry, so let me hear no more from you, sir, an’ then we’ll all be good friends, like we’re partin’ now.  Good-night!”

CHAPTER VIII

Before setting out for his work the next morning, Sam Slawson tried to prepare Ma and Miss Lang for the more than probable appearance, during the day, of the officer of the law, he predicted Friedrich Langbein would have engaged to prosecute Martha.

“He has a clear case against you, mother, no doubt o’ that.  You’d no business in his place at all, let alone that you assaulted an’ battered him.  He can make it hot for us, an’ I don’t doubt he will.”

Mrs. Slawson attended with undivided care to the breakfast needs of such of her flock as still remained to be fed.  The youngsters had all vanished.

“If he wants to persecute me, let him persecute me.  I guess I got a tongue in my head.  I can tell the judge a thing or two which, bein’ prob’ly a mother himself, he’ll see the sense of.  Do you think I want Sammy growin’ up under my very eyes, a beer-drinkin’ wife-beater?—­because he seen the eggsample of it set before’m by a Dutchman, when he was a boy?  Such things makes an impression on the young—­which they ain’t sense enough to know the difference between a eggsample an’ a warnin’.  An’ the girls, too!  As I told you las’ night, it’s bad for the country when matrimony ain’t made to look like a prize-package, no matter what it reely is.  What’s goin’ to become o’ the population, I should like to know?  Here’s Cora now, wantin’ to be a telefoam-girl when she grows up, an’ there’s no knowin’ what Francie’ll choose.  But you can take it from me, they’ll both of ’em drop their votes for the single life.  They’ll perfer to thump a machine o’ their own, with twelve or fifteen per, comin’ to ’em, rather than be the machine that’s thumped, an’ pay for the privilege out’n their own pockets besides.”