"If I could only hang some one for this! Joe Johnson's the white-livered sneak that would not go. I've hanged a better son-in-law."
"Aunt Patty, I love your grandchild, Huldy," Cy James ventured to say. "The Captain's wounded and Joe's going away to Floridy. Maybe I kin git you up another band."
Without an instant's consideration of this ambitious proposition, Mrs. Cannon threw Cy James, by main strength, through the window of her bar, into her kitchen, and he bawled like a baby, yet came out of his grief muttering, "Ploughin', ploughin'! I'll make her into batter and fry her yet."
With this reflection Mr. James hid himself for the remainder of the afternoon in some secluded part of the Hotel Johnson.
Mrs. Cannon, however, had instantly resumed her monologue on business.
"They all think to give the old woman the go-by: a sick man's no good, and there's that wife of Van Dorn's hopin' to git him yit. By God! she sha'n't have him in his shroud. No; I'll recruit from young material. Ruin 'em when they's boys, and, while you kin pet 'em, they'll do your work! I have one nigger in the garret Joe wants to burn: he's my nigger, and I'll let him loose to bring me more niggers. Money is what I need to put on a bold front: Huldy must fetch it!"
With this resolution Patty Cannon mounted the stairs to a room on the second floor, and, without knocking, pushed her way in.
A man of a voluptuous form and face, like one overfed, yet on the best, and with stiff, military shoulders, and of colors warm in tint, yet cold in expression, blue eyes, and rich, wine-lined cheeks and lips, that still seemed hard and self-indulged, spoke up at once:
"Always knock, Patty! it's more conservative. My way in life is to reach my point, but respect all the forms. What do you want?"
"When do you leave for Baltimore, Cunnil McLane?"