She weighed twice as much as
Muffles--one of those shapeless women with a kindly, Alderney face, and
hair never in place, who lets everything go from collar to waist-line.
"Say, Missus, didn't de Sheriff say dat was a perfec' likeness?" And he
handed it to her.
The wife laughed, passed it back to Muffles and, with a friendly nod to
me, kept on to the kitchen.
"Bar-room ain't no place for women," Muffles remarked in an undertone
when his wife had disappeared. "Dat's why de Missus ain't never 'round.
And when de kids grow up we're goin' to quit, see? Dat's what de Missus
says, and what she says goes!"
All that summer the Shady Side prospered. More tables were set out under
the trees; Bowser got an assistant; Muffles wore better clothes; the
Missus combed out her hair and managed to wear a tight-fitting dress,
and it was easy to see that fame and fortune awaited Muffles--or what he
considered its equivalent. Muffles entertained his friends as usual on
the back porch on Sunday mornings, but he shaved himself upstairs and
wore an alpaca coat and boiled shirt over his red flannel underwear.
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