"That's the funniest part on't," responds Jim. "He found an old friend on the boat, as was much of a gentleman,—an old friend as was dressed within an inch of his life, an' sold the tickets."
"Phipps!" "Phipps!" shout half a dozen voices, and a boisterous laugh goes around the group.
"Ye've guessed right the fust time," Jim continues, "an' the gentlemanlest clerk, an' the poplarest man as ever writ names in a book, an' made change on a counter, with no end o' rings an' hankercher-pins, an' presents of silver mugs, an' rampin' resolootions of admirin' passingers. An' there the two fellers be, a sailin' up an' down the S'n.' Lor'nce, as happy as two clams in high water, workin' up corners in their wages, an' playin' into one another's hands like a pair of pickpockets; and what do ye think old Belcher said about Phipps?"
"What did he say?" comes from every side.
"Well, I can't tell percisely," responds Jim. "Fust he said it was proverdential, as Phipps run away when he did; an' then he put in somethin' that sounded as if it come from a book,—somethin' about tunin' the wind to the sheared ram."
Jim is very doubtful about his quotation, and actually blushes scarlet under the fire of laughter that greets him from every quarter.
"I'm glad if it 'muses ye," says Jim, "but it wasn't anything better nor that, considerin' the man as took it to himself."
"Jim, you'll be obliged to read up," says "the little woman," who still stands by her early resolutions to take her husband for what he is, and enjoy his peculiarities with her neighbors.
"I be as I be," he responds. "I can keep a hotel, an' make money on it, an' pervide for my own, but when it comes to books ye can trip me with a feather."
The little banquet draws to a close, and now two or three inquire together for Mr. Yates. He has mysteriously disappeared! The children have already left the table, and Paul B. is romping with a great show of equine spirit about the garden paths, astride of a stick. Jim is looking at him in undisguised admiration. "I do believe," he exclaims, "that the little feller thinks he's a hoss, with a neck more nor three feet long. See 'im bend it over agin the check-rein he's got in his mind! Hear 'im squeal! Now look out for his heels!"