othes. He never quite understood Ford's
sense of humor, at such times, but he had learned that it is more
comfortable to crawl out of bed than to be kicked out, and that
vituperation is a mere waste of time when matched against sheer
heartlessness and a superior muscular development.

"Y' ought to make your wife build the fires," he taunted, when he was
clothed and at a safe distance from the bed. He ducked instinctively
afterwards, but Ford was merely placing a match by itself on the bench
close by.

"That's one," Ford remarked calmly. "I'm going to thrash every misguided
humorist who mentions that subject to me in anything but a helpful
spirit of pure friendship. I'm going to give him a separate licking for
every alleged joke. I'll want two steaks, Sandy. I'll likely have to
give you about seven distinct wallopings. Hand me some more matches to
keep tally with. I don't want to cheat you out of your just dues."

Sandy eyed him doubtfully while he scraped the ashes from the grate.

"You may want a dozen steaks, but that ain't saying you're going to git
'em," he retorted, with a feeble show of aggression. "And 's far as
licking me goes--" He stopped to blow warmth upon his fingers, which
were numbed with their grasp of the poker. "As for licking me, I guess
you'll have to do that on the strength uh bacon and sour-dough biscuits;
if you do it at all, which I claim the privilege uh doubting a whole
lot."

Ford laughed a little at the covert challenge, made ridiculous by
Sandy's diminutive stature, pulled the blankets up to his eyes, and
dozed off luxuriously; and although it is extremely tiresome to be told
in detail just what a man dreams upon certain occasions, he did dream,
and it was something about being married. At any rate, when the sizzling
of bacon frying invaded even his slumber and woke him, he felt a
distinct pang of disappointment that it was Sandy's carroty head bent
over the frying-pan, instead of a wife with blond hair which waved
becomingly upon her temples.

"Wonder what color her hair is, anyway," he observed inadvertently,
before he was wide enough awake to put the seal of silence on his
musings.

"Hunh?"

"I asked when those banana fritters are coming up," lied Ford, getting
out of bed and yawning so that his swollen jaw hurt him, and relapsed
into his usual taciturnity, which was his wall of defense against
Sandy's inquisitiveness.

He ate his breakfast almost in silence, astonishing Sandy