For four hours Vinegar Atts had served them in that dining-room, silent, watchful, with some mysterious instinct foreseeing the minutest need of every guest and meeting it before the guest himself was conscious what his need was.
The talk had become reminiscent.
“Say, Lem,” Colonel Gaitskill remarked, “do you remember how we used to scare the everlasting gizzards out of the niggers on the plantation by holding spiritualistic séances in their cabins?”
“Will I ever forget it?” Captain Manse laughed. “The darkies used to run when they saw me coming!”
“I wonder if you have forgotten how to make the table dance?” Gaitskill asked.
Captain Manse promptly pushed back his chair.
Vinegar Atts had no idea what was going to happen, but he knew instinctively that the table should be cleared. His long arms reached over the shoulders of the men and the liquors and the cigars were placed upon the sideboard.
With fun sparkling in his magnetic eyes, Manse arose and began the repetition of a stunt which had amused him half a century before.
“Gentlemen,” he began, in a sing-song voice, imitating the manner of the professional mediums, “there is an even number of us present, which makes a perfect spiritualistic ring. I presume you will smile and chuckle and fling unholy jests at the wonderful miracles which I perform, but I shall most certainly convince you of my close communion with the spirits of the unseen world. You might doubt a professional test, but this is an amateur séance. Here is no hidden machinery. Here are no paid confederates. You are my best friends, and why should I try to fool you? We are all sincere and open to conviction, and any results which are obtained must surely be authentic.”
This address concluded amid laughter and applause.