"My, my!" exclaimed he, "how this cold does get your rheumatism. Um, ah, and my throat is a trifle choked up, too, Charles. I am afraid I shall have to have—"
I passed the demijohn without comment.
"Um, ah Nance!" said he, quizzically, holding aloft a tiny glass filled to the brim, "that's the color of your hair, my dear! Prettiest color on earth? Eh, Charles?"
I gave hearty assent so far as concerned the hair.
"But one thing sweeter, Nance!" he continued, bowing as gallantly as his age would permit; "just one thing sweeter, more inspiring, more retiring, more hell-firing! Ah—ah—you know who she is, Charles?"
Again I bowed my assent, and Nance blushed confusedly.
"You had better tell your tale, Granddad," she admonished, "before it becomes retiring.... No telling, you'll be off on a fish story in a moment. There is nothing which seems to make the fish you catch weigh more than a little nip of the inspiring—"
"Tut, tut, girl," said he, gathering himself together with amusing mock dignity, "I shall prove that you slander your old grandfather."
"The girl," he began, indicating Nance with a nod of the head, "went to Louisville Tuesday. She came back to-night on the Spreading Eagle. Old Captain Mead was in command. It was his first trip after several months spent south looking after the steamboat company's business during the recent yellow fever epidemic in Mississippi. He had been in Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and other places along the route attending to the paralyzed shipping interests and quarantined steamboats. It was in New Orleans that he heard of Monsieur l'Abbé. The priest was not working under the organized relief committee itself, but went here and there with undisciplined yet effective zeal. It seems, so the Captain was told, that this Monsieur Picot came driving into the city in a cart one day, made his way to the quarters occupied by those of his own nationality, sought information concerning where he might be of use, and set off again."
Nance, who had made several attempts to interrupt Doctor Longstreet, now succeeded.