"
"Oh, now, Ira, I ain't so bad as all that!" declared his wife
mildly.
"Yes, you be. I am always expecting you to fall down, or hurt
yourself some way. And as for looking out for the Queen of Sheby--"
"Now, Ira, Queenie ain't no trouble scurcely."
"Huh! She's more trouble than all our money, that's sure. And she's
eating her head off."
"Now, don't say that," urged his wife in that soothing tone which
often irritated Cap'n Ira more than it mollified him.
He tapped the metal top of the huge knob of his cane and the spring
cover flew open. Ira took a pinch of snuff, inhaled it, closed the
cover of the box, delicately brushed a few flecks of the pungent
powder from his coat lapel and shirt front, and then, burying his
nose in a large silk handkerchief, vented a prodigious:
"_A-choon!_"
Prudence uttered a surprised squeak, like a mouse being stepped on,
jerked herself to a half-standing posture, and the potatoes rolled
to every point of the compass.
"Goodness gracious gallop!" she ejaculated, quite shaken out of her
usual calm. "I should think, Ira, as many times as I've told you
that scares me most into a conniption, that you'd signal me when
you're going to take snuff.
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