tan looked as hungry
as a hungry gull at the bait that was offered him, but just then
Jacob was coughing most lamentably. So with a wry face, that was all
colors at once, Thurstan answered, "Aw, Greeba, woman, do you really
think a poor man has got no feelings? Don't press it, woman. You'll
hurt me."

Recking nothing of these refusals Greeba tried each of the others in
turn, and getting the same answer from all, she wheeled about,
saying, "Very well, be it so," and quickly locked the money in the
drawer of a cabinet. This done, she said sharply, "Now, you can go."

"Go?" they cried, looking up from their seats in bewilderment.

"Yes," she said, "before my husband returns."

"Before he returns?" said Jacob. "Why, Greeba, we wish to see him."

"You had better not wait," said Greeba. "He might remember what you
appear to forget."

"Why," said Jacob, with every accent of incredulity, "and isn't he
our brother, so to say, brought up in the house of our own father?"

"And he knows what you did for our poor father, who wouldn't lie
shipwrecked now but for your heartless cruelties," said Greeba.

"Greeba, lass, Greeba, lass," Jacob protested, "don't say he wouldn't
take kind to the own brothers of his own wife."

"He also knows what you did for her," said Greeba, "and the sorry
plight you brought her to."

"What!" cried Jacob, "you never mean to say you are going to show an
ungrateful spirit, Greeba, after all we've brought you?"

"Small thanks to you for that, after defrauding me so long," said
Greeba.

"What! Keeping you from marrying that cheating knave?" cried Jacob.

"You kept me from nothing but my just rights," said Greeba. "Now
go--go."

Her words fell on them like swords that smote them hip and thigh, and
like sheep they huddled together with looks of amazement and fear.

"Why, Greeba, you don't mean to turn us out of the house," said
Jacob.

"And if I do," said Greeba, "it is no more than you did for our dear
old father, but less; for that house was his, while this is mine, and
you ought to be ashamed to show your wicked faces inside its doors."

"Oh, the outrageous little atomy," cried Asher.

"This is the thanks you get for crossing the seas to pay people what
there was never no call to give them," said Stean.

"Oh, bad cess to it all," cried Ross, "I'll take what it cost me to
come, and get away straight. Give it me, and I'm off."

"No," said Greeba, "I'll have no half measures. You refused