"But that was very easy to say; it wouldn't have been so easy to
find anybody who would have been willing to tell him such a thing
as that, especially when they weren't any too sure. He set his
eyes by his wife, too. They said all he seemed to think of was to
earn money to buy things to deck her out in. And he about
worshiped the child, too. They said he was a real nice man. The
men that are treated so bad mostly are real nice men. I've always
noticed that.
"Well, one morning that man that there had been whispers about was
missing. He had been gone quite a while, though, before they
really knew that he was missing, because he had gone away and told
his wife that he had to go to New York on business and might be
gone a week, and not to worry if he didn't get home, and not to
worry if he didn't write, because he should be thinking from day to
day that he might take the next train home and there would be no
use in writing. So the wife waited, and she tried not to worry
until it was two days over the week, then she run into a
neighbour's and fainted dead away on the floor; and then they made
inquiries and found out that he had skipped--with some money that
didn't belong to him, too.
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