DICK SANDS, CONVICT.
I
he stage stopped at a disheartened-looking tavern with a sagging porch and sprawling wooden steps. A fat man with a good-natured face, tagged with a gray chin whisker, bareheaded, and without a coat—there was snow on the ground, too—and who said he was the landlord, lifted my yellow bag from one of the long chintz-covered stage cushions, and preceded me through a sanded hall into a low-ceiled room warmed by a red-hot stove, and lighted by windows filled with geraniums in full bloom. The effect of this color was so surprising, and the contrast to the desolate surroundings outside so grateful, that, without stopping to register my name, I drew up a chair and joined the circle of baking loungers. My oversight was promptly noted by the clerk—a sallow-faced young man with an uncomfortably high collar, red necktie, and stooping shoulders—and as promptly corrected by his dipping a pen in a wooden inkstand and holding the book on his knee until I could add my own superscription to those on its bespattered page. He had been considerate enough not to ask me to rise.
The landlord studied the signature, his spectacles on his nose, and remarked in a kindly tone:—
"Oh, you're the man what's going to lecture to the college."
"Yes; how far is it from here?"
"'Bout two miles out, Bingville way. You'll want a team, won't you? If I'd knowed it was you when yer got out I'd told the driver to come back for you. But it's all right—he's got to stop here again in half an hour—soon 's he leaves the mail."
I thanked him and asked him to see that the stage called for me at half-past seven, as I was to speak at eight o'clock. He nodded in assent, dropped into a rocking chair, and guided a spittoon into range with his foot. Then he backed away a little and began to scrutinize my face. Something about me evidently puzzled him. A leaning mirror that hung over a washstand reflected his head and shoulders, and gave me every expression that flitted across his good-natured countenance.