Australian Tales - Setis

iron and the marking ink. Excuse me, Grouts — good night — much
obliged to you. Give my love to Mrs. G. — Good night.”
Chapter II.
AFTER Mr. Grouts left his friend Gummy's house, he walked slowly
homeward; and any one meeting him would have fancied him under the
influence of laughing gas, or something else equally exciting, for he
chuckled and poked the air with his stick in the most facetious manner
imaginable.
“Whatever is the matter with you, Grouts,” asked his wife, when he
entered his home, still laughing and blinking both eyes at once. “You
haven't broken your pledge, I hope? Let me smell you. All right,” she
added, after a few satisfactory sniffs at her jovial spouse. “You are quite
sober, though you look half drunk; but what is tickling you so
amazingly? Tell me this minute, you giggling old image, or I'll run up to
Gummy's house and ask him.”
“Sit down, missus, and I'll tell you a secret,” said Mr. Grouts: so Mrs.
Grouts sat down, and her husband told her all about his interview with
Jabez, and something besides, which set her giggling too. After an hour's
merry conference, the old couple went to bed, laughing all the way up
stairs.
* * * * *
“Oh, my dear! what do you think?” exclaimed Widow Mayberry,
entering Mrs. Grouts's cottage — in a state of great excitement — two
days after the above recorded events. “Would you believe it, Gummy is
a — a — a deceitful old cripple; I have made such a humiliating
discovery. I don't know when I have felt so staggered, since the night I
was run over by the safety cab.”
“What in the world is it, neighbour?” asked Mrs. Grouts, with well
feigned wonder in her looks. “Sit down and compose yourself a bit, then
tell me what has happened. Let me get you a cup of tea with an egg in it.
Poor thing! You look quite upset. There now, untie your bonnet strings
and sip that, while you tell me what is the matter. It is something serious,
I'm afraid. I hope it isn't fire or — — ”
“I'll tell you in a few words. An hour ago I was up at Gumberry
Lodge — though I don't mean to call it by that name any more, the old
fellow named it after himself and Kitty; for he said that his and Kitty's
names looked uncommonly nice together; but he must stick something
else to his gum now, or leave it bare, for he shall never have Kitty
Mayberry while my name is Ruth. Well, as I was saying, I went there an
hour ago to see him about the stuffing for the sucking pig — for I don't