His father's temper would have yielded a point or two, the next day, had

it been given the least encouragement. For instance, he might have gone

over to see Marie before he moved the furniture out of the house, had

he not discovered an express wagon standing in front of the door when

he went home about noon to see if Marie had come back. Before he had

recovered to the point of profane speech, the express man appeared,

coming out of the house, bent nearly double under the weight of Marie's

trunk. Behind him in the doorway Bud got a glimpse of Marie's mother.

That settled it. Bud turned around and hurried to the nearest drayage

company, and ordered a domestic wrecking crew to the scene; in other

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words, a packer and two draymen and a dray. He'd show 'em. Marie and her

mother couldn't put anything over on him--he'd stand over that furniture

with a sheriff first.

He went back and found Marie's mother still there, packing dishes and

doilies and the like. They had a terrible row, and all the nearest

neighbors inclined ears to doors ajar--getting an earful, as Bud

contemptuously put it. He finally led Marie's mother to the front door

and set her firmly outside. Told her that Marie had come to him with

no more than the clothes she had, and that his money had bought every

teaspoon and every towel and every stick of furniture in the darned

place, and he'd be everlastingly thus-and-so if they were going to

strong-arm the stuff off him now. If Marie was too good to live with

him, why, his stuff was too good for her to have.

Oh, yes, the neighbors certainly got an earful, as the town gossips

proved when the divorce suit seeped into the papers. Bud refused to

answer the proceedings, and was therefore ordered to pay twice as much

alimony as he could afford to pay; more, in fact, than all his domestic

expense had amounted to in the fourteen months that he had been married.

Also Marie was awarded the custody of the child and, because Marie's

mother had represented Bud to be a violent man who was a menace to her

daughter's safety--and proved it by the neighbors who had seen and heard

so much--Bud was served with a legal paper that wordily enjoined him

from annoying Marie with his presence.

That unnecessary insult snapped the last thread of Bud's regret for what

had happened. He sold the furniture and the automobile, took the money

to the judge that had tried the case, told the judge a few wholesome

truths, and laid the pile of money on the desk.




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