“That’s so,” said Eva.

“I tell you, sir, it ain’t the facts of the case, but the reason for the facts, which we must think of,” maintained Nahum Beals.

“I don’t care a darn for the facts nor the reasons,” said Jim Tenny; “all I care about is I’m out of work maybe till spring, with my mother dependent on me, and not a cent laid up, I’ve been so darned careless, and here’s Eva says she won’t marry me till I get work.”

“I won’t,” said Eva, who was very pale, except for burning spots on her cheeks.

“She’s afraid she won’t get frostin’ on her cake, and silk dresses, I expect,” Jim Tenny said, and laughed, but his laugh was very bitter.

“Jim Tenny, you know better than that,” Eva cried, sharply.  “I won’t stand that.”

Jim Tenny, with a quick motion, unwound his arm from Eva’s waist and stripped up his sleeve.  “There, look at that, will you,” he cried out, shaking his lean, muscular arm at them; “look at that muscle, and me tellin’ her that I could earn a livin’ for her, and she afraid.  I can dig if I can’t make shoes.  I guess there’s work in this world for them that’s willin’, and don’t pick and choose.”

“There ain’t,” declared Nahum, shortly.

“You can’t dig when the ground’s froze hard,” Eva said, with literal meaning.

“Then I’ll take a pickaxe,” cried Jim.

“You can dig, but who’s goin’ to pay you for the diggin’?” demanded Nahum Beals.

“The idea of a girl’s bein’ afraid I wa’n’t enough of a man to support a wife with an arm like that,” said Jim Tenny, “as if I couldn’t dig for her, or fight for her.”

“The fightin’ has got to come first in order to get the diggin’, and the pay for it,” said Nahum.

“Now, look at here,” Andrew Brewster broke in, “you know I’m in as bad a box as you, and I come home to-night feelin’ as if I didn’t care whether I lived or died; but if it’s true what McGrath said to-night, we’ve got to use common-sense in lookin’ at things even if it goes against us.  If what McGrath said was true, that Lloyd’s losing money keeping on, I dunno how we can expect him or any other man to do that.”

“Why not he lose money as well as we?” demanded Nahum, fiercely.

“’Cause we ’ain’t got none to lose,” cried Jim Tenny, with a hard laugh, and Eva and Fanny echoed him hysterically.

Nahum took no notice of the interruption.  Tragedy, to his comprehension, never verged on comedy.  One could imagine his face of intense melancholy and denunciation relaxed with laughter no more than that of the stern prophet of righteous retribution whose name he bore.

“Why shouldn’t Norman Lloyd lose money?” he demanded again.  “Why shouldn’t he lose his fine house as well as I my poor little home?  Why shouldn’t he lose his purple and fine linen as well as Jim his chances of happiness?  Why shouldn’t he lose his diamond shirt-studs, and his carriage and horses, as well as Joe his life?”