ey
were.

The placid brow of Mr. Thomas Cadge was darkened with disapproval, he
shifted his stubby brier pipe to the other corner of his mouth, edged a
little from his seat on the sunny front stoop and, craning his neck
around the corner of his house, revealed an unwashed area extending from
collarbone to left ear.

"Shet up, you kids!" he barked. "Wot for? Becos I say so, that's why. I
don't like that song, 'taint fit for Sunday."

With a soothing consciousness that he had upheld the sacred character of
the Sabbath, Mr. Cadge settled back to the comfort of his sun-bath and
smoke. But he had scarcely emitted three puffs before the piping voice
of Arabella Cadge was again wafted to his ears. She sang solo this time,
and the selection was of a semi-devotional nature, more in keeping with
the day:

"Oh fadher, dear fadher, come 'ome wid me now,
De clock on de steeple strikes----"

"Shet up, drat you!" again commanded her parent. "If I has to get up and
go arter you----"

The balance of this direful threat may never be known, for at that
moment Mr. Job Snavely, garbed in the black broadcloth which he wore one
day out of seven, paused in front of Mr. Cadge's door and bade him good
morning.

"Mornin'," responded the ruffled father.

"Your little girl is quite a song bird," continued Mr. Snavely, with his
usual facility in making well-meant small-talk more irritating than a
hurled brick.

"She sings too much," commented Mr. Cadge, shortly, "I likes people wot
knows when to 'old their tongues."

"Very true, very true!" amiably replied Mr. Snavely, "but for all that,
there is nothing sweeter than the artless babble of babes; I declare it
almost brought the tears to my eyes when I heard them prattling,
'Everybody works but father,' it is so very, very appro----"

Mr. Snavely checked himself abruptly, for the light in the small, green
eyes of Thomas Cadge was baleful, and his square jaw protruded
menacingly. The kindly critic of music had a vague feeling that the
subject might be changed to advantage.

"Been to church this morning, I suppose?" he inquired briskly with the
assurance of a man just returning from that duty.

"No I 'asn't," retorted Cadge, "and wot's more the old woman 'asn't, and
the kids 'asn't neither. 'Cos why? 'Cos in this 'ere free country of
yours, a laboring man can't make a living for 'is family, workin' 'ard
as I does, Sundays, nights, and h'all the time. The missus and the kids
st