"Hokey-pokey!" answered Cy James, with a more mysterious and impressive sufflation; "Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"
"Why, Cy! what do you mean? Jimmy Phœbus never swars but in them air words. Do you know Jimmy Phœbus?"
"Pangymonum, too!" hissed Cy James, with every animation. "Hokey-pokey, three! an' By smoke, one!"
He put his long arms on his knees, and bent down like a great goose, and stared into Levin's eyes.
"I never had sense enough," Levin said, "to guess a riddle, Cy Jeems. Them words I have hearn a good man—my mother's friend—use so often that they scare me. My mind's been a-thinkin' on him night an' day. Oh, is he dead?"
"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!" the long, lean, excited fellow whispered, with the greatest solemnity.
"They're Jimmy Phœbus's daily words, dear Cyrus. He was killed on the river night before last; I saw him fall; it is my sin and misery."
"He ain't dead," Cy James whispered, very low and carefully. "I won't tell you whar he is till you make Huldy like me."
"How kin I do that, Cy?"
"She thinks I'm a coward and gits whipped by Owen Daw. Tell her I ain't no coward. Tell her I'm goin' to fry all these people on my griddle—all but Huldy. Tell her I'm only playin' coward till I gets 'em all in batter an' the griddle greased, an' then I'll be the bully of the Cross-roads!"