[figure description] Page 101.[end figure description]

“Mrs. Partington, your neighbor, Mr. Gruff, is
rather irascible, I think,” said the new minister on his
first visit to the old lady, as he heard Gruff scolding Ike
for throwing snow-balls at his new martin-house. Gruff
kept a grocery over the way, and was in a constant
quarrel with every boy in the neighborhood. Mrs. Partington
looked at the minister through her spectacles
inquiringly before she answered.

“Rather a rascal!” said she, slightly misapprehending
his question, and patting her box affectionately; “yes,
indeed, I think he is, a great rascal! He sold me burnt
peas for the best coffee, once, and it was n't weight,
nuther. When they built our new church, somebody
said there was a nave in it, and I know'd in a minute
who they meant. Why” —

“I mean,” interrupted the minister, blandly, laying
his white hand gently on his arm, “I mean that he is
quick-tempered.”

“O, that 's quite another thing — yes, he is very,”
and she changed the subject. But that word “irascible”
ran in her head for an hour after he was gone, and
when Ike came in she told him to take down the old
Johnson's Decency and find the defamation of it.

p677-119

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