ance at the clock, she walked to the window to look
for her husband. He was not in sight. As she lingered her glance fell on
Mormon Joe's tar-paper shack that set in the middle of the lot on the
diagonal corner from their house, and she told herself bitterly that
even that drunken renegade, that social pariah, had enough to eat.

Her face brightened as Toomey turned the corner and promptly lengthened
when she saw that he was empty-handed and walking with the exaggerated
swagger which she was coming to recognize as a sign of failure.

A glimpse of his face as he came in, banged the door, and flung off his
hat and coat made her hesitate to speak.

"Well?" he glared at her. "Why don't you say something?"

"What is there to say, Jap?" meekly. "I see he refused you."

"Refused me? He insulted me!"

Mrs. Toomey looked hurt.

"What did he say, Jap?"

"He offered me fifteen dollars a week to _clerk_."

Toomey resented fiercely the pleased and hopeful expression on his
wife's face, and added:

"I suppose you'd like to see me cutting calico and fishing salt pork out
of the brine?"

She ventured timidly:

"I thought you might take it until something worth while turned up."

"Maybe," he sneered, "I could get a job swamping in 'Tinhorn's'
place--washing fly specks off the windows and sweeping out."

"Of course, you're right, Jap," conciliatingly, but she sighed
unconsciously as she went back to her work.

Toomey paced the floor for a time, then sank into his usual place on the
sofa. Mrs. Toomey permitted herself to observe sarcastically:

"It's a wonder to me you don't get bed sores--the amount of time you
spend on the flat of your back."

"What do you mean by that?" suspiciously. "Do you mean I'm lazy because
I didn't take that job?"

Since she made no denial, conversation ceased, and the silence was
broken only by the sound of her scissors upon the table and the howling
of the gale.

He smoked cigarette after cigarette in gloomy thought, finally getting
up and going to a closet off the kitchen.

"What are you looking for, Jap?" she called as she heard him rummaging.

He did not reply, but evidently found what he sought for he came out
presently carrying a shotgun.

"Are you going to try and raffle that?"

Still he did not deign to answer, but preserved his injured air, and
getting once more into his hat and coat started off with the martyred
manner of a man who has been driven from home.

Mrs. Toomey