"I'll bust," wailed Mr. Brackett.
"Well, that bump will make a little room," remarked Cap'n Sproul, jouncing him down into a chair.
He planted one broad hand on the table and the other on his hip, and stood over the guest until the last crumb of the duff was gone, although Mr. Brackett clucked hiccups like an overfed hen. The Cap'n felt some of his choler evaporate, indulging in this sweet act of tyranny.
Resentment came slowly into the jovial nature of meek Todd Ward Brackett. But as he pushed away from the table he found courage to bend baleful gaze on his over-hospitable host.
"I've put up at a good many taverns in my life," he said, "and I'm allus willin' to eat my fair share of vittles, but I reckon I've got the right to say how much!"
"If you're done eatin'," snapped the Cap'n, "get along out, and don't stay round in the way of the help." And Mr. Brackett retired, growling over this astonishing new insult.
He surveyed the suspended alligator gloomily, as he stuffed tobacco into his pipe.
"Better shet them jaws," he advised, "or now that he's crazy on the plum-duff question he'll be jamming the rest of that stuff into you."
"You can't say outside that the table ain't all right or that folks go away hungry under the new management," remarked Hiram, endeavoring to palliate.
"New management goin' to inorg'rate the plum-duffin' idee as a reg'lar system?" inquired Mr. Brackett, sullenly. "If it is, I'll stay over to-morrow and see you operate on the new elder that's goin' to supply the pulpit Sunday—pervidin' he stays here."