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“Why,” she cried, “you just said as much yourself, that if you didn’t dodge and get away he’d kill you.”

“An’ I’ll say it again. I ain’t gowun to eat my words for the best woman that ever wore shoes, an’ you can chew on that, Missus Ryer. I tell you Mac’s the hardust hittun husband a woman ever had.”

“Well, I just guess I will,” vociferated the ex-dentist.

Bewildered and raging at the unexpected reconciliation of their husbands, the two women had disappeared, Trina slamming the door of the kitchen with a parting cry of “pig feeder,” which Missis Ryer immediately answered by thrusting her head out of a second story window and screaming at the top of her voice to the neighborhood in general, “dirty little drab.”

Meanwhile the two men strode out of the house and across the street, their arms affectionately locked; the swing doors of the “Stube” flapped after them like a pair of wings.

That day settled the matter. Heretofore it had been the men who were enemies and their wives who were friends. Now the two men are fast friends, while the two women maintain perpetual feud. The “block” has come to recognize their quarrel as part of the existing order of things, like the leak from the gas-works and the collector’s visits. Occasionally the women fight, and Missis Ryer, who is the larger and heavier, has something the best of it.

However, one particular custom common to both households remains unchanged—both men continue to thrash their wives in the old ratio—McTeague on the days when he is drunk (which are many), Ryer on the days when he was sober (Which are few).