"Look at him," he says, pointing to the feller
with the brown beard, "he's scared stiff right now."
Which I would of been scared myself if I'd a-been
ketched that-a-way like Henry was, and the per-
fessor's voice sounding like you was chopping
ice every time he spoke. I seen the perfessor
didn't want to have no blood on the carpet without
he had to have it, but I seen he was making up his
mind about something, too. Jane, she says:
"YOU a better man? YOU? You think you've
been a model husband just because you've never
beaten me, don't you?"
"No," says the perfessor, "I've been a blamed
fool all right. I've been a worse fool, maybe,
than if I HAD beaten you." Then he turns to
Henry and he says:
"Duels are out of fashion, aren't they? And a
plain killing looks bad in the papers, doesn't it?
Well, you just wait for me." With which he gets
up and trots out, and I hearn him running down
stairs to his labertory.
Henry, he'd ruther go now. He don't want to
wait. But with Jane a-looking at him he's shamed
not to wait. It's his place to make some kind of a
strong action now to show Jane he is a great man.
But he don't do it. And Jane is too much of a
thoroughbred to show him she expects it. And me,
I'm getting the fidgets and wondering to myself,
"What is that there perfessor up to now? What-
ever it is, it ain't like no one else.
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