She, we know, was in the habit of supplying George's extravagances in a way which tried all her ingenuity to hide from him, and he, mistrusting her statements, had determined as far as he could to watch her.
On this occasion she laid the letter on the breakfast table, and waited his coming down, hoping that he might be in a good humour, so that there might be some chance of averting the storm from George.

Madge was much terrified for the consequences, but was quite calm and firm.
Not long before she heard his heavy step coming down the stairs, and soon he came into the room, evidently in no favourable state of mind.
"If you don't kill or poison that black tom-cat," was his first speech, "by the Lord I will.

I suppose you keep him for some of your witchwork.
But, if he's the devil himself, as I believe he is, I'll shoot him.

I won't be kept out of my natural sleep by such a devil's brat as that.
He's been keeping up such a growling and a scrowling on the hen-house roof all night, that I thought it was Old Scratch come for you, and getting impatient.

If you must keep an imp of Satan in the house, get a mole, or a rat, or some quiet beast of that sort, and not such a vicious toad as him." "Shoot him after breakfast if you like," she said.