"Well, what'll you have?" Uncle Seth demanded hotly. "I'm an honest man. I'm a deacon in the church. My business is an honest business. There's nothing here for you, Neil! What do you want?"
In spite of his apparent anger,—or because of it,—Uncle Seth's voice trembled.
"Well, what do you mean by all this talk of an honest man? Ain't I an honest man?"
"Why—why—"
"Hgh! You've not got much to say to that, have you?"
"I—why—I don't—know—"
"Of course you don't know. You don't know an honest man when you see one. Don't talk to me like that, Seth Upham. You and me has robbed too many churches together when we was boys to have you talk like that now. You and me—"
"For heaven's sake keep still!" Uncle Seth cried. "Customers are coming."
Neil Gleazen grunted again. Pushing a cracker-box into the corner behind Uncle Seth's desk and placing his beaver on it, he settled back in Uncle Seth's own chair, with a cool impudent wink at me, as if for a long stay, while Uncle Seth, with an eagerness quite unlike his usual abrupt, scornful manner, rushed away from his unwelcome guest and proceeded to make himself surprisingly agreeable to a pair of country woman who wished to barter butter for cotton cloth.