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"
Oh, don't! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it
away from you, for God's sake!"
But that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and got
the same retort. But weaker.
And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with anguish,
and absently. This time--and the following night--the wives fidgeted
feebly, and tried to say something. But didn't.
And the night after that they found their tongues and
responded--longingly:
"
Oh, if we could only guess!"
Halliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and
disparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town,
individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the
village: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not
even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around
on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and
aimed the thing and said "Ready!--now look pleasant, please," but not
even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any
softening.
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