"Oh, it's terrible, papa. You know it," supplemented Norah, who was seventeen and quite as bright as her sister, though a little less experienced.
"Everybody says so.
Look at all the nice houses that are being built everywhere about here."
"Everybody!
Everybody!
Who is 'everybody,' I'd like to know?" demanded Butler, with the faintest touch of choler and much humor.
"I'm somebody, and I like it.
Those that don't like it don't have to live in it.
Who are they?
What's the matter with it, I'd like to know?"
The question in just this form had been up a number of times before, and had been handled in just this manner, or passed over entirely with a healthy Irish grin.
To-night, however, it was destined for a little more extended thought.
"You know it's bad, papa," corrected Aileen, firmly.
"Now what's the use getting mad about it?
It's old and cheap and dingy.
The furniture is all worn out.
That old piano in there ought to be given away.
I won't play on it any more.
The Cowperwoods—"
"Old is it!" exclaimed Butler, his accent sharpening somewhat with his self-induced rage. He almost pronounced it "owled."
"Dingy, hi! Where do you get that? At your convent, I suppose.
And where is it worn?
Show me where it's worn."
He was coming to her reference to Cowperwood, but he hadn't reached that when Mrs. Butler interfered.
She was a stout, broad-faced woman, smiling-mouthed most of the time, with blurry, gray Irish eyes, and a touch of red in her hair, now modified by grayness.
Her cheek, below the mouth, on the left side, was sharply accented by a large wen.
"Children! children!" (Mr. Butler, for all his commercial and political responsibility, was as much a child to her as any.)
"Youse mustn't quarrel now.
Come now.
Give your father the tomatoes."
There was an Irish maid serving at table; but plates were passed from one to the other just the same.
A heavily ornamented chandelier, holding sixteen imitation candles in white porcelain, hung low over the table and was brightly lighted, another offense to Aileen.
"Mama, how often have I told you not to say 'youse'?" pleaded Norah, very much disheartened by her mother's grammatical errors.
"You know you said you wouldn't."
"And who's to tell your mother what she should say?" called Butler, more incensed than ever at this sudden and unwarranted rebellion and assault.
"Your mother talked before ever you was born, I'd have you know.
If it weren't for her workin' and slavin' you wouldn't have any fine manners to be paradin' before her.
I'd have you know that.
She's a better woman nor any you'll be runnin' with this day, you little baggage, you!"
"Mama, do you hear what he's calling me?" complained Norah, hugging close to her mother's arm and pretending fear and dissatisfaction.
"Eddie!
Eddie!" cautioned Mrs. Butler, pleading with her husband.
"You know he don't mean that, Norah, dear.
Don't you know he don't?"
She was stroking her baby's head.
The reference to her grammar had not touched her at all.
Butler was sorry that he had called his youngest a baggage; but these children—God bless his soul—were a great annoyance.
Why, in the name of all the saints, wasn't this house good enough for them?
"Why don't you people quit fussing at the table?" observed Callum, a likely youth, with black hair laid smoothly over his forehead in a long, distinguished layer reaching from his left to close to his right ear, and his upper lip carrying a short, crisp mustache.
His nose was short and retrousse, and his ears were rather prominent; but he was bright and attractive.