"For goodness' sake!" interrupted Janice, hoping to divert the tide of Walky's talk. "What is a 'skunk-bear'?"
"Wolverine," explained her cousin quickly. "And the meanest creature that ever got on a line of traps. Hey, Walky?"
"Now you've said it, boy," agreed the expressman. "An' that remin's me of one of the meanest things that Tom Hotchkiss done when he was a boy."
"Oh, well!" grunted Uncle Jason, who evidently disliked the discussion of Tom's short-comings. "They say George Washington cut down his father's favorite cherry tree; yet he grew up to be president."
"Huh! but he didn't lie about it—that's why he got to be president," said the astute Walkworthy. "And Tom Hotchkiss lied about this mean thing he done."
"Wal! let's have it," Mr. Day said, with a sigh. "It'll choke ye I can plainly see if ye ain't allowed to unburden your soul."
Walky began to stuff his pipe out of Mr. Day's tobacco sack that he had appropriated from the shelf beside the door.
"Ye see," he said, "Tom worked for ol' man Ketcham a while—him that run the dairy farm over Middletown way. But Tom never did work long in one place when he was a boy. That oughter told ye something, Jase."
Mr. Day grunted. Marty said:
"Go on with your story, Walky. Who told you you was the law and the prophets?"