“Dr. Duchesne has many friends that you and me mightn't cotton to,” said her husband. “This man is Jack Hamlin.” As his wife's remote and introspective black eyes returned only vacancy, he added quickly. “The noted gambler!”
“Gambler?” echoed his wife, still vaguely.
“Yes—reg'lar; it's his business.”
“Goodness, Seth! He can't expect to do it here.”
“No,” said Seth quickly, with that sense of fairness to his fellow man which most women find it so difficult to understand. “No—and he probably won't mention the word 'card' while he's here.”
“Well?” said Mrs. Rivers interrogatively.
“And,” continued Seth, seeing that the objection was not pressed, “he's one of them desprit men! A reg'lar fighter! Killed two or three men in dools!”
Mrs. Rivers stared. “What could Dr. Duchesne have been thinking of? Why, we wouldn't be safe in the house with him!”
Again Seth's sense of equity triumphed. “I never heard of his fightin' anybody but his own kind, and when he was bullyragged. And ez to women he's quite t'other way in fact, and that's why I think ye oughter know it afore you let him come. He don't go round with decent women. In fact”—But here Mr. Rivers, in the sanctity of conjugal confidences and the fullness of Bible reading, used a few strong scriptural substantives happily unnecessary to repeat here.
“Seth!” said Mrs. Rivers suddenly, “you seem to know this man.”