“That wasn’t our arrangement.”

“It was so.”

“You’ll eat all night,” Tom complained, almost tearfully.  “You’ll set there and gorge till you bust.”

“That’s my privilege.  I don’t aim to swaller my grub whole.  I’m shy a few teeth and some of the balance don’t meet, so I can’t consume vittles like I was a pulp-mill.  I didn’t start this row—­”

“Who did?”

“Now ain’t that a fool question?” Jerry leaned back comfortably and began an elaborate vacuum-cleaning process of what teeth he retained.  “Who starts all our rows, if I don’t?  No.  I’m as easy-going as a greased eel, and ’most anybody can get along with me, but, tread on my tail and I swop ends, pronto.  That’s me.  I go my own even way, but I live up to my bargains and I see to it that others do the same.  You get the hell away from that stove!”

Tom abandoned his purpose, and with the resignation of a martyr returned to teeter upon the edge of his bunk.  He remained there, glum, malevolent, watchful, until his cabin-mate had leisurely cleared the table, washed and put away his dishes; then with a sigh of fat repletion, unmistakably intended as a provocation, the tormentor lit his pipe and stretched himself luxuriously upon his bed.

Even then Tom made no move.  He merely glowered at the recumbent figure.  Jerry blew a cloud of smoke, then waved a generous gesture.

“Now then, fly at it, Mr. Linton,” he said, sweetly.  “I’ve et my fill; I’ve had an ample sufficiency; I’m through and in for the night.”

“Oh no, you ain’t!  You get up and wash that skillet.”

Mr. Quirk started guiltily.

“Hustle your creaking joints and scrub it out.”

“Pshaw!  I only fried a slice—­”

“Scrub it!” Linton ordered.

This command Jerry obeyed, although it necessitated heating more water, a procedure which, of course, he maliciously prolonged.  “Waited till I was all spread out, didn’t you,” he sneered, as he stooped over the wood-box.  “That’s like you.  Some people are so small-calibered they’d rattle around in a gnat’s bladder like a mustard seed in a bass drum.”

“I’m particular who I eat after,” Tom said, “so be sure you scrub it clean.”

“Thought you’d spoil my smoke.  Well, I can smoke standin’ on my head and enjoy it.”  There was a silence, broken only by the sound of Jerry’s labors.  At last he spoke:  “Once again I repeat what I told you yesterday.  I took the words out of your own mouth.  You said the woman was a hellion—­”

“I never did.  Even if I had I wouldn’t allow a comparative stranger to apply such an epithet to a member of my family.”

“You did say it.  And she ain’t a member of your family.”

Tom’s jaws snapped.  “If patience is a virtue,” he declared, in quivering anger, “I’ll slide into heaven on skids.  Assassination ought not to be a crime; it’s warranted, like abating a nuisance; it ain’t even a misdemeanor—­sometimes.  She was a noble woman—­”