"Oh, they are perfect dears, Uncle Joe," protested Mrs. Bingle, trying
her best not to bristle.
"I wish you had come in for a look at 'em--" began Mr. Bingle, but the
old man cut him off with a snort of anger.
"Cussed little nuisances," he said, holding his thin hands to the
blaze.
"I don't see how you can say such things about children you don't know
and can't--" began Mrs. Bingle.
He glared at her. "You can't tell me anything about children, Mary.
I'm the father of three and I know what I'm talking about. Children
are the damnedest curse on earth. You ought to thank God you haven't
got any."
CHAPTER II
RELATING TO AN ODD RELATION
Now, Mr. Joseph Hooper had excellent cause for being a sour old man,
and in a measure was to be pitied because of his attitude toward the
young of his species. He had not been well-used by his own children,
although it is no more than right to explain that they were hardly
what any one save a parent would call children when they turned
against him. At that particular period in the history of the Hooper
family, the youngest of Joseph's three children was seventeen, the
oldest twenty-two--and it so happens that the crisis came just fifteen
years prior to the opening scene in this tale.
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