"No, thanks," replied Spike, firmly. "This chair kind of fits my frame."
Wilbur Cowan, standing farther along the porch, winked at Spike before he remembered.
"Say, ain't you French?" demanded the judge with a sudden qualm.
He had taken no stock in that fool talk of Dave Cowan's about a French nobleman; still, you never could tell. He had thought it as well to be dressed for it should he be required to meet even impoverished nobility.
"Hell, no!" said Spike. "Irish!" He moved uneasily in the chair. "Excuse me," he added.
"Oh!" said the judge, regretting the superior comfort of his linen suit. He eyed the chair with covetous glance. "Well, I hope everything's all for the best," he said, doubtfully.
"How beautiful it smells!" said Spike, sniffing away from the moth balls toward the rosebush. "Everything's beautiful, and this peach of a chair and all. What gets me—how a beautiful girl like she is could ever take a second look at me."
The judge regarded him sharply, with a new attention to the hidden eyes.
"Say, are you blind?" he asked.
"Blind as a bat! Can't see my hand before my face."