“How’d you get along?” asked Bob, pausing to wipe the perspiration from his brow after he had emptied the two pails of water into the tub.
“All right,” said Wallingford with a reminiscent smile.
“Old Mrs. Bubble drive you off the place?”
“No,” replied Wallingford loftily. “I went in the house and talked a while.”
“Go on!” exclaimed Bob, the glow of admiration almost shining through his skin. “Say, you’re a peach, all right! How do you like Fannie?”
“She’s a very nice girl,” opined Wallingford.
“Yes,” agreed Bob. “She’s getting a little old, though. She was twenty her last birthday. She’ll be an old maid pretty soon, but it’s her own fault.”
Then Bob went after more water, and Wallingford, seating himself at the table with paper and pencil, plunged into a succession of rambling figures concerning Jonas Bubble’s black swamp; and he figured and puzzled far into the night, with the piquant face of Miss Fannie drifting here and there among the figures.