Horace Townsend laughed. "But you have not yet told me how many are waiting, or when you are really going up."
"Oh, there must be nearly or quite twenty of them, moping around the house, running out to look at the sky every ten minutes, and asking the clerk and the guides questions that they are about as fit to answer as a prairie-chicken to solve a problem in geometry! As to when we are going up—do you know?"
"I am going up to-morrow, whether any one else goes up or not," said the lawyer. "And by the way, I have bespoken a clear day for that especial occasion."
"Have you? Thank you! Then I suppose we can all go up!" replied the Illinoisan, as if the information had been the most serious in the world. "By the way—how are they all, over yonder!"
There was something very like a blush on the face of the questioner, and there was something varying very little from that phenomenon on the brown cheek of the other as he answered:
"I have not seen much of either," (what did he mean by "either," a word peculiarly applying, in common parlance, to two?) "but I believe that they are well."
"Still at the Profile?"
"Yes, and likely to remain there, for any thing that I know to the contrary."
"Any news of any kind? Any more accidents or startling events?"
"None—yes, there is one startling event. The Brooks Cunninghames came away the same day that you left. Have you got the old woman here?"