cutting himself and family adrift from all association with his brother-in-law. Even had he been able to overcome his scruples, there was the very obvious bond of affection between Mrs. Hearty, Millie, and "Uncle Joe": but, what was more alarming, there was the question of how Bindle himself might view the severance.
Mrs. Hearty was a woman on whom fat had descended like a plague. It rendered her helpless of anything in the nature of exertion. In her Bindle found a kindred spirit. Her silent laugh, which rippled down her chins until lost to sight in her ample bust, never failed to inspire him to his best efforts. He would tell her of his "little jokes" until Millie would have to intervene with a timid:
"Oh, uncle, don't! You're hurting mother!"
Great amusement rendered Mrs. Hearty entirely helpless, both of action and of speech, and to her laughter was something between an anguish and an ecstasy.
She was quite conscious of the stimulating effect upon Bindle of her "Oh, Joe, don't!" yet never hesitated to utter what she knew would eventually reduce her to a rippling and heaving mass of mirth.
She was Bindle's confidante, and seemed to find in the accounts of his adventures compensation for the atmosphere of repression in which she lived. In her heart she regretted that her husband had not been a furniture-
