“I suppose so!” muttered Tom, with a sort of dogged misgiving.
“It strikes me that you have a very respectable fear of your governor. Am I right?”
“Ain't you afraid of yours?” bluntly asked the other.
“Afraid of mine!” cried Conyers, with a loud laugh; “I should think not. Why, my father and myself are as thick as two thieves. I never was in a scrape that I did n't tell him. I 'd sit down this minute and write to him just as I would to any fellow in the regiment.”
“Well, there 's only one in all the world I 'd tell a secret to, and it is n't My father!”
“Who is it, then?”
“My sister Polly!” It was impossible to have uttered these words with a stronger sense of pride. He dwelt slowly upon each of them, and, when he had finished, looked as though he had said something utterly undeniable.
“Here's her health,—in a bumper too!” cried Conyers.
“Hurray, hurray!” shouted out Tom, as he tossed off his full glass, and set it on the table with a bang that smashed it. “Oh, I beg pardon! I didn't mean to break the tumbler.”
“Never mind it, Dill; it's a trifle. I half hoped you had done it on purpose, so that the glass should never be drained to a less honored toast. Is she like you?”