He sprang lightly
from his heels, affected to scan a murky cloud-bank to the south,
ignited his second cigarette from the first, and seemed relieved by the
actual diversion of Laura, his present lawful consort, now plodding
along the road just outside the fence.
Laura is ponderous and billowy, and her moonlike face of rusty bronze is
lined to show that she, too, has gone down a little into the vale of
years. She was swathed in many skirts, her shoulders enveloped by a
neutral-tinted shawl, and upon her head was a modist toque of light
straw, garlanded with pink roses. This may have been her hunt constume,
for the carcasses of two slain rabbits swung jauntily from her girdle.
She undulated by us with no sign. Pete's glistening little eyes lingered
in appraisal upon her noble rotundities and her dangling quarry. Then,
with a graceful flourish of the new cigarette, he paid tribute to the
ancient fair.
"That old mahala of mine, she not able to chew much now; but she's some
swell chicken--b'lieve me!"
I persisted in the impertinence he had sought to turn.
"How about this brother-in-law of yours, Pete?"
Again he was deaf.
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