"Nonsense" was easier to say, if not to hear than "No." Oliver considered for a moment, drew Abby to colloquy by the pump, and sought his brother behind the woodpile.

Then he returned to the charge.
"Look here, Father," he said, "CASH DOWN, we'll take ten." John Murchison was a man of few words, but they were usually impregnated with meaning, especially in anger.

"No more of this," he said.
"Celebrate fiddlesticks! Go and make yourselves of some use.

You'll get nothing from me, for I haven't got it." So saying, he went through the kitchen with a step that forbade him to be followed.

His eldest son, arriving over the backyard fence in a state of heat, was just in time to hear him.