“Law-zee!” gasped Uncle Zach, with his eyeballs rolling. “Dinner can't go no fur'der twell we gits somebody else in or meks somebody leave and go 'way—dat's sartain shore! Whee! We kin all thank Our Maker dat dey ain't been nary bite et yit.”
“Amen to dat, Brer Zach!” muttered Ike shakily; and dumbly Tobe Emery nodded, stricken beyond power of speech by the nearness of a barely averted catastrophe fraught with disaster, if not with death itself.
Involuntarily Judge Priest had shoved his chair back; most of the others had done the same thing. He got on his feet with alacrity.
“Boys,” he said, “the squire is right—there's thirteen of us. Now whut d'ye reckin we're goin' to do 'bout that?”
The natural suggestion would be that they send at once for another person. Three or four offered it together, their voices rising in a babble. Names of individuals who would make congenial table mates were heard. Among others, Sergeant Jimmy Bagby was spoken of; likewise Colonel Cope and Captain Woodward. But Judge Priest shook his head.
“I can't agree with you-all,” he set forth. “By the time we sent clean uptown and rousted one of them boys out, the vittles would all be cold.”
“Well, Billy,” demanded Doctor Lake, “what are you going to do, then? We can't go ahead this way, can we? Of course I don't believe in all this foolishness about signs myself; but”—he added—“but I must admit to a little personal prejudice against thirteen at the table.”
“Listen here, you boys!” said Judge Priest. “Ef we're jest, obliged and compelled to break a long-standin' rule of this command—and it looks to me like that's whut we've got to do—let's foller after a precedent that was laid down a mighty long time ago. You-all remember—don't you—how the Good Book tells about the Rich Man that give a feast oncet? And at the last minute the guests he'd invited didn't show up at all—none of 'em. So then he sent out into the highways and byways and scraped together some hongry strangers; and by all accounts they had a purty successful time of it there. When in doubt I hold it's a fairly safe plan to jest take a leaf out of them old Gospels and go by it. Let's send out right here in the neighbourhood and find somebody—no matter who 'tis, so long as he's free, white and twenty-one—that looks like he could appreciate a meal of vittles, and present the compliments of Company B to him, and ast him will he come on in and jine with us.”
Maybe it was the old judge's way of putting it, but the idea took unanimously. The manager of the Richland House, having been sent for, appeared in person almost immediately. To him the situation was outlined and the remedy for it that had been favoured.
“By gum, gentlemen,” said their host, instantly inspired, “I believe I know where I can put my hand on the very candidate you're looking for. There's a kind of seedy-looking, lonely old fellow downstairs, from somewhere the other side of the Ohio River. He's been registered since yes'day morning; seems like to me his name is Watts—something like that, anyhow. He don't seem to have any friends or no business in particular; he's just kind of hanging round. And he knows about this dinner too. He was talking to me about it a while ago, just before supper—said he'd read about it in a newspaper up in his country. He even asked me what the names of some of you gentlemen were. If you think he'll do to fill in I'll go right down and get him. He was sitting by himself in a corner of the lobby not two minutes ago. I judge he's about the right age, too, if age is a consideration. He looks to be about the same age as most of you.”