ders, or let a helpless
baby crawl out of its swaddlings into the fire. Go ahead, but I'd hurry
up a little. When there is a debate of any sort on my wife can do her
housework ten times as quick as ordinarily, if the work is holding her
back from the talk."

Professor Cardell pulled at his beard till his lips smacked and his
white teeth showed. "I'm of the opinion, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen," he
began, "that Whaley was tempted by the big wages young Trott was
drawing, and all that Cavanaugh had to say about what Trott was apt to
amount to in the future. As we all know, _facilis descensus Averno est_,
and any man with natural greed in his veins is subject to temptation.
Therefore I wish to state quite plainly--"

"Well, plain or not plain," Mrs. Suggs was heard saying, as she bustled
into the room, brushing short brown hairs from her dress and frowning on
the speaker, "I don't intend to have my place gobbled up behind my
back. Huh! I reckon not! You stout, able-bodied men let me do the dirty
work, and make that a reason for depriving me of my liberty of opinion
and the use of free speech."

"As I see it," rapped Suggs with his knife, "Professor Cardell has just
got to a point that if he wasn't allowed to go on he'd have to go back
to the beginning and start over. I've noticed that he is that kind of a
speaker, and as time is--"

"Professor Cardell nor no other creature in pants can take my place,"
Mrs. Suggs fumed. "What is he saying, anyway? You men ought to be
ashamed of yourselves, setting here like stranded catfish, swallowing
all them foreign words and pretending you understand 'em. He whirls off
a lot of jumbled talk and the last one of you look as wise as a sleepy
ape in the corner of a cage in a circus."

"I see I ought to apologize." Professor Cardell wore a flush which
looked as if it had its rise in scholastic pride rather than in rebuked
humility. "I am well aware that my phraseology is interspersed with
Latin, but that is due to my constant reading of the ancient classics
and a habit I have when I am alone of holding converse in that beautiful
tongue."

"Beautiful, a dog's hind foot!" cried Mrs. Suggs. "Listen to me,
Professor Cardell. I can give you valuable advice, and I'm going to do
it here and now. You'd make much more headway, and clothe and feed your
wife and children a sight better, if you would throw all that gibberish
overboard and talk stuff that folks understand. Now nobody else hasn't
h