“Well, by G——! that’s a G——­ d——­ pretty business—­squatting on a door-step like a servant girl!  Come in, I tell you, and shut the door.”

From long habit Fanny did not pay the least attention to this order.  But after some time she rose and closed the door, and clattered along the entry and up stairs, upon the worn and ragged carpet.  Mr. Alfred Dinks returned to the parlor, pulled the bell violently, and when the sloppy servant girl appeared, glaring at him with the staring eyes, he immediately damned them, and wanted to know why in h——­ he was kept waiting for his boots.  The staring eyes vanished, and Mr. Dinks reclined upon the sofa, picking his teeth.  Presently there was the slop—­slop—­slop of the girl along the entry.  She opened the door, dropped the boots, and fled.  Mr. Dinks immediately pulled the bell violently, walking across the room a greater distance than to his boots.  Slop—­slop again.  The door opened.

“Look here!  If you don’t bring me my boots, I’ll come and pull the hair out of your head!” roared the master of the house.

The cowering little creature dashed at the boots with a wobegone look, and brought them to the sofa.  Mr. Dinks took them in his hand, and turned them round contemptuously.

“G——!  You call those boots blacked?”

He scratched his head a moment, enjoying the undisguised terror of the puny girl.

“If you don’t black ’em better—­if you don’t put a brighter shine on to ’em, I’ll—­I’ll—­I’ll put a shine on your face, you slut!”

The girl seemed to be all terrified eye as she looked at him, and then fled again, while he laughed.

“Ho! ho! ho!  I’ll teach ’em how—­insolent curs!  G——­ d——­ Paddies!  What business have they coming over here?  Ho! ho! ho!”

Leaving his slippers upon the parlor floor, Mr. Dinks mounted to his room and changed his coat.  He tried the door of his wife’s room as he passed out, and found it locked.  He kicked it violently, and bawled,

“Good-morning, Mrs. Dinks!  If Miss Wayne calls, tell her I’ve gone to tell Mr. Abel Newt that she repents, and wants to marry him; and I shall add that, having been through the wood, she picks up a crooked stick at last.  Ho! ho! ho! (Kick.) Good-morning, Mrs. Dinks!”

He went heavily down stairs and slammed the front door, and was gone for the day.

When they were first married, after the bitter conviction that there was really no hope of old Burt’s wealth, Fanny Dinks had carried matters with a high hand, domineering by her superior cleverness, and with a superiority that stung and exasperated her husband at every turn.  Her bitter temper had gradually entirely eaten away the superficial, stupid good-humor of his younger days; and her fury of disappointment, carried into the detail of life, had gradually confirmed him in all his worst habits and obliterated the possibility of better.  But the sour, superior nature was,