He put down his carpet-bag on the veranda and entered the broad hall, where an old-fashioned lantern was burning on a stand. Here, too, the doors of the various apartments were open, and the rooms themselves empty of occupants. An opportunity not to be lost by Ezekiel's inquiring mind thus offered itself. He took the lantern and deliberately examined the several apartments, the furniture, the bedding, and even the small articles that were on the tables and mantels. When he had completed the round—including a corridor opening on a dark courtyard, which he did not penetrate—he returned to the hall, and set down the lantern again.
“Well,” said a voice in his own familiar vernacular, “I hope you like it.”
Ezekiel was surprised, but not disconcerted. What he had taken in the shadow for a bundle of serapes lying on the floor of the veranda, was the recumbent figure of a man who now raised himself to a sitting posture.
“Ez to that,” drawled Ezekiel, with unshaken self-possession, “whether I like it or not ez only a question betwixt kempany manners and truth-telling. Beggars hadn't oughter be choosers, and transient visitors like myself needn't allus speak their mind. But if you mean to signify that with every door and window open and universal shiftlessness lying round everywhere temptin' Providence, you ain't lucky in havin' a feller-citizen of yours drop in on ye instead of some Mexican thief, I don't agree with ye—that's all.”
The man laughed shortly and rose up. In spite of his careless yet picturesque Mexican dress, Ezekiel instantly recognized Demorest. With his usual instincts he was naturally pleased to observe that he looked older and more careworn. The softer, sensuous climate had perhaps imparted a heaviness to his figure and a deliberation to his manner that was quite unlike his own potential energy.
“That don't tell me who you are, and what you want,” he said, coldly.
“Wa'al then, I'm Ezekiel Corwin of North Liberty, ez used to live with my friend and YOURS too, I guess—seein' how the friendship was swapped into relationship—Squire Blandford.”
A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. “Well,” he said, impatiently, “I don't remember you; what then?”
“You don't remember me; that's likely,” returned Ezekiel imperturbably, combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, “but whether it's NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez a matter of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy the night Squire Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It's true that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away from the hotel, and that you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and the theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped the hoss and buggy somewhere, got in and got run away agin, and pitched over the bridge. But seein' your relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford, and all the sukumstances, I reckoned you'd remember it.”
“I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards,” said Demorest, dryly, “but I don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man who gave me the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it.”