They were like childish actors in a juvenile production
at five pins per admission. An unexpected line threw them into
complete disorder.
Connery turned to Gilfoyle. "Did you ever lamp this old lady
before?"
Gilfoyle answered, stoutly enough, "I never laid eyes on her."
Connery was about to order Mrs. Thropp out of the room as an
impostor, but she would not be denied her retort.
"O' course he never laid eyes on me. If he had have he'd never tried
to pull the wool over that innocent baby's eyes; and if I'd ever laid
eyes on him I'd have run him out of the country before I'd ever have
let my child look at him a second time."
Connery made one last struggle: "What proof have you got that
you're her mother?"
"Ask my husband here."
"What good is his word in such a matter?"
Connery did not mean this as in any sense a reflection on Mrs.
Thropp's marital integrity, but she took it so. Now, in Nimrim
the question of fidelity is not dealt with lightly, at least in
repartee. Mrs. Thropp emitted a roar of scandalized virtue and
would have attacked the young men with her fists if her husband,
who should have attacked them in her stead, had not clung to her,
murmuring:
"Now, momma, don't get excited. You young fellers better vamoose
quick. I can't holt her very long."
So they vamosed and were much obliged for the opportunity, leaving
Kedzie to fling her arms about her mother with spontaneous filial
affection, and to present Dyckman to her with genuine pride.
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