Under the chaise-top was a hunched-up elderly man, gaunt but huge of frame, his knees almost at his chin. Long, grizzled hair fluffed over his shoulders, and little puffs of white whiskers stood out from his tanned cheeks. A fuzzy beaver hat barely covered the bald spot on his head. The reins were looped around his neck. Between his hands, huge as hams, moaned and sucked and snuffled and droned a much-patched accordion. To its accompaniment the man sang words that he fitted to the tune of “Old Dog Tray,” trolling lustily at the end of each verse, “An honest friend is old hoss Joe.”
“Whoa, there! Whup!” screamed Hiram’s parrot, swinging by one foot.
“Ain’t you kind of workin’ a friend to the limit, and a little plus?” inquired Hiram, sarcastically. The old horse, at the parrot’s command, had stopped before the gate, legs straddled, head down, the dust rising in little puffs as he breathed.
“Joachim loves music,” said the stranger, with a mild smile. “He’ll travel all day if I’ll only play and sing to him.”
“Love of music will be the death of Joachim, then,” commented Hiram, briefly.
“Is there a hostelry near by?” asked the other, lifting his tall beaver hat politely. In the atmosphere of rough-and-ready Palermo the little action seemed an exaggeration. With satirical courtesy Hiram lifted his hat—and at the psychological moment the only “plug” hats in the whole town of Palermo saluted each other.
“There’s a hossery down the road, and a mannery, too, all run by old Fyles.”
“Crack ’em down, gents,” rasped the parrot. “Twenty can play as well as one.”
The man under the chaise-top pricked up his ears and cast a rather startled look at the plug hat in the yard. Plug hat in the yard seemed suddenly to recognise some affinity or comradeship in plug hat under the chaise-top. The Squire saw only another of those fantastic wanderers who occasionally went dragging through the village, peddling their wares. He backed slowly to the porch and sat down. His brother trudged out into the road and walked around the outfit, his nose elevated with a curiosity that was almost canine.
At last he planted himself in the highway before the man of the chaise-top, his knuckles on his hips, his eye flashing under brows wrinkled with thought, and stared long and silently.