"We're on the rocks this time, Leah, smashin' for all we're worth. How we can win clear beats me." With hands which had never earned a shilling thrust into pockets empty even of that coin, Jim Kaimes stretched out his long legs and surveyed his neat boots as he made this cryptic speech. His habit of expressing himself in a parabolic fashion was confusing to his friends. But five years of marital squabbling had schooled his wife into ready comprehension, and she usually responded without comment. On this occasion, however, the subject under discussion irritated even her healthy nerves, and she replied irrelevantly. "Really, Jim, I wish you would talk English." "Huh! Never knew I was talking Choctaw." "You might be, for all the sense an ordinary person can make of it." "Ah-a-a!" said Jim, with the clumsy affection of a bear; "but you're not an ordinary person, Leah. I'm the common or garden ass, that can't straighten things. Now you can." "For want of a husband I suppose I must." "Come now, Leah. Am I not your husband?"