"No; going," Murphy, the engineer, slowly answered.
"Where to, do you suppose?" asked Smith. Any new topic of conversation early in the evening was welcome.
"Like as not," Tate came forward with his brew, "like as not it's them folks up to the bungerler. I heard Mr. Drew had a cutter an' horse over from Hillcrest; and going out nights skylarking seems part of his religion."
"Religion!" sniffed Smith; "they're a rum lot, all right!"
"I wish they was!" Tate put in gloomily, but grinned as the others laughed.
"It's a durned shame to take an animile out nights for fun," Murphy interrupted; "I'd hate to run even the injine 'less 'twas important. Gosh! Tate, you must have let your hand slip when you mixed this."
"Christmas comes but once a year." Tate beamed radiantly. It was good to see that his Black Cat still had charms to compete successfully with the bungalow.
"That piece up to the minister's," Smith glowed inwardly and outwardly, "is the nervy one, all right," he remarked.
"Which one?" asked Tate; "the fixture or the transient?"
"The steady. I was setting here musing late this afternoon, when in she come over there," Tom indicated the woman's side of the screen; "and first thing I knowed if she wasn't standing on a cracker-box on her side, and a-looking over the screen."