THE STEADFAST HEART
onto your two feet and lookin’ at a king with a crown a-shinin’ onto his head! There’s been Burkes that’s seen royalty, Missis Burke. You married into the Burke fam’ly and you ought to hold your head higher. Seems like you hain’t never appreciated the honor I done you when I married you…. I’ll bet Burkes has called kings by their fust names.” He pointed to himself and shook his head impressively. “This here husband of your’n, which you let on to dispise, Missis Burke, has set onto the same log with a governor—the governor of a whole state—and that there governor, which comes next to bein’ a king, he up and calls me Titus. What d’ye think of that? He calls me Titus ’cause he seen what a ree-markable feller I be…. Now I’m a-goin’ to look up a king and see what he says.”
Suddenly his humor changed, and he banged the forelegs of his chair to the floor as he jumped to his feet and stamped to a far corner of the room. There, in the dim light, he withdrew a stained tobacco pouch from his pocket and took from it a roll of currency. This he thumbed over laboriously, counting with muttering lips. Even the shadows of that far corner did not suffice to hide the bills from his wife’s eyes, and she sat erect.
“Titus Burke,” she screamed, “where ’d you get all that money?”
9
