"Dines on babies," said Tom. "He'll be after a Dutchman next."
"Out of this house he goes, and you, too!" said the landlord. "Here, Cæsar, Scipio! carry Captain Bragg's baggage down and set it on the pavement." The negroes proceeded to obey orders. "And now be off!" said Boniface. "I don't ask you to settle your bill; I want no money from you. I want you to leave, and take that monkey with you!"
"You had better go," said Seddon to Bragg, "or he will call on the sheriff to summon a posse comitatus and put you out."
"I want no comitatus, Mr. Seddon," said the landlord, overhearing the remark; "I can manage him and his monkey both."
The sagacity of Bragg enabled him to comprehend the situation. He perceived that the indignant Boniface was not to be intimidated even by a harpoon or a boomerang. Toney Belton had whispered to the cosmopolite that the landlord was the very man who had shot General Packenham from his horse, and thereby gained for Old Hickory his glorious victory on the banks of the Mississippi; and Tom Seddon asseverated that he had decapitated three Indians with a bowie-knife, in a hand-to-hand encounter, in the Everglades of Florida. Upon calm consideration Bragg determined to leave the hotel. His baggage was conveyed to a boarding-house which Seddon had found for him in the suburbs of the town. Here he secured comfortable quarters for himself and an asylum for his monkey.
At night, after smoking their cigars, Belton proposed to his friend that they should call on Botts. They were sitting in his room, with Wiggins, talking to the unfortunate man, and getting him in a cheerful mood by pleasant conversation, when Pate rushed in with horror depicted in his countenance.
"What's the matter, Mr. Pate?" said Belton.
"Oh!—oh!—oh!"
"What's the matter?" said Wiggins.