Among the tin cans and ash heaps the children of the Point were playing. One inspired girl had decked a mound of wreckage and garbage with some glittering goldenrod and was calling her mates to come and see the "heaven" she had made.
Larry laughed at this and muttered: "Made it in hell, eh, kid?"
Twombley was sitting in his doorway watching what was going on. He was a gaunt, sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed, and sharp-tongued man. He was the laziest man on the Point, but with all the earmarks of the cleverest.
Twombley spat and took Larry out of the pigeonhole of his memory--labelled and priced; Twombley had not thought of him in years, as a definite individual. He was Mary-Clare's husband; a drifter; a tool of Maclin. As such he was negligible.
"Feeling same as I look," he said at last. He was ready to appraise the man before him.
"Bad nut," was what he thought, but diluted his sentiments because of the relationship to the old doctor and Mary-Clare. Twombley, like everyone else, had a shrine in his memory--rather a musty, shabby one, to be sure, but it held its own sacredly. Doctor Rivers and all that belonged to him were safely niched there--even this son, the husband of Mary-Clare about whom the Forest held its tongue because he was the son of the old doctor.
"Old Sniff's popped, I hear." Larry, now that he chose to be friendly, endeavoured to fit his language to his hearer's level. "Have a cigar, Twombley?"
"I'll keep to my pipe." The old man's face was expressionless. "If you don't get a taste for what you can't afford you don't ruin it for what you can. Yes, looks as if Sniff was dead. They've buried him, at any rate."
"Was he married?" Floating in Rivers's mind was an old story, but it floated too fast for him to catch it.
"She went through the marriage service. That fixes it, don't it?" Twombley puffed loudly.
"I suppose it does, but I kind of recall that there was a quarrel between them."
"Ain't that a proof that they was married?" Twombley's eyes twinkled through the slits of lids--he always squinted his eyes close when he wanted to go slow. Larry laughed.
"Didn't Peneluna Sniff, or whatever her name is, live in a house by herself?" he asked. He was puzzled.
"She sure did. Your old man was a powerful understander of human nater. A few feet 'twixt married folks, he uster say, often saves the day."