"That's true," said the young man, "but perhaps there might have been if they'd stayed. They say that Squire Jones was going to have Josh Thatcher arrested next week for his barn, but he's agreed to let up if he'd go to the Cubapines. Maybe that isn't true, but they say so."
"I venture to say that it is a mistake," said Sam, who had been much pained by the conversation. "Young men who are so patriotic in the hour of need must be men of high character."
"Maybe they are and maybe they aren't," replied the insurance agent, "but old Mrs. Crane told me she was going to buy chickens again next week for her chicken-yard. There was so many stolen last year that she gave up keeping them, but next week she's beginning again, and next week the Thatchers are going away. It's a coincidence, anyhow."
"Oh, boys will be boys," said Reddy. "When they get a good pension they'll be just as respectable as you or me. Here comes Tom Slade now, and Josh Thatcher, too."
The door had opened, and through the smoke Sam descried two young men, one a slight wiry fellow, the other a large, broad-shouldered, fair-haired man with a dull expression of the eye.
"Who says 'drinks all around'?" cried the former. "Everybody's blowing us off now."
"Here," said Jackson, waking up, "I'll do it, hanged if I don't. You fellows are a-goin' to civilize the Cubapinos, and you deserve all the liquor you can carry."
He got up and approached the bar and the crowd followed him, and soon every one was supplied with some kind of beverage.
"Here's to Thatcher and Slade! May they represent Slowburgh honorably in the Cubapines and show 'em what Slowburghers are like," said Jackson, elevating his iced cocktail.
The health was heartily drunk.