“Cigar!” he said.  “Have a cigar?  Will you have a cigar?  Oh yes, a cigar.”  His voice was murderously low and soft.  He even lisped slightly.  “A cigar,” he repeated.  “A cigar.  Oh, Lord!  If men like me git a hand of chewing-tobacco once a month, they think they are damned lucky.  Cigar, Lord!” Then the soft was out of his voice.  He cut his words short, or rather he seemed to hammer them down into the consciousness of his auditors.  He turned upon the others.  “Want to know how that good-for-nothin’ liar an’ thief gits them cigars?” he shouted.  “Want to know?  Well, I’ll tell you.  I give ’em to him, an’ you did.  How many of you can smoke cigars like them, hey?  Smell ’em.  Ten or fifteen cents apiece; mebbe more.  We give ’em to him.  Yes, sir, that’s jest what we did.  He took the money he owed us for milk and meat and dress-makin’ an’ other things to buy them cigars.  You got up early an’ worked late to pay for ’em; he didn’t.  I got up at half-past three o’clock in the mornin’—­half-past three in the winter, when he was asleep in his bed, damn him.  The time will come when he won’t sleep more than some other folks.  I got up at half-past three o’clock, and I snatched a mouthful of breakfast, fried cakes and merlasses, that he’d ‘a’ turned up his nose at.  He had beefsteak an’ eggs at our expense, he did, an’ I had a cup of damned weak coffee, cause I was too honest or too big a fool, whichever you call it, to buy any coffee I couldn’t pay for.  He’d ‘a’ turned up his nose at sech coffee.  An’ I went without sugar in it, an’ I went without milk, so’s to give it to him, so’s he could git cigars.  And as for cream, cream, cream!  Lord!  Couldn’t git enough cream to give him.  He was always yellin’ for cream.  Cream!  My wife an’ me would no more of thought of our puttin’ cream in our coffee than we’d thought of putting in five-dollar gold pieces to sweeten it.  No, we saved the cream for him.  My wife don’t look so young and fat as his wife.  His wife has been fed on our cream.”  Tappan looked hard at Anna Carroll, whom he evidently took for Carroll’s wife.  He took note of her dress.  “My wife never had a silk gown,” said he.  “Lord!  I guess she didn’t!  She had to git up as early as I did, an’ wash milk-pans, so we could give milk to that man, an’ he could save money on us to git his wife a silk gown.  Lord!  Jest look—­”

Then Madame Griggs spoke, her small, deprecatory snarl raised almost to hysterical pitch.  She was catching the infection of this bigger resentment and sense of outraged justice.

“He didn’t save money to git his wife that silk gown with your milk money,” said she, “for I made that gown, an’ I got the material, an’ I ’ain’t been paid a cent.  That was one of the gowns I made when Ina was married.  That silk cost a dollar and a quarter a yard.  I could have got it at ninety-eight cents at a bargain, but that wa’n’t good enough for her.  He didn’t take your milk money for that.  He didn’t take any money to pay anybody for anything he could run in debt for, I can tell you that.  He must have paid somebody that wouldn’t wait an’ wouldn’t be cheated.”