“Well,” said Moseley, “a man named Lovejoy is on Colonel Waring’s staff, and he gave me my orders.”
At this the old man fairly shrieked with laughter, and so sinister was its emphasis that the two soldiers felt the cold chills creeping up their backs.
“What is the matter with Lovejoy?” It was Chadwick who spoke.
“Oh, wait!” cried Colonel Watson; “thes wait. You mayn’t want to wait, but you’ll have to. I may look like I’m mighty puny, an’ I ’spec’ I am, but I hain’t dead yit. Lord A’mighty, no! Not by a long shot!”
There was a pause here, during which Aunt Crissy remarked, in a helpless sort of way:—
“I wonder wher’ Polly is, an’ what she’s a-doin’?”
“Don’t pester ’long of Polly,” snapped the paralytic. “She knows what she’s a-doin’.”
“About this Wesley Lovejoy,” said Captain Moseley, turning to the old man: “you seem to know him very well.”
“You hear that, William!” exclaimed Colonel Watson. “He asts me ef I know Wes. Lovejoy! Do I know him? Why, the triflin’ houn’! I’ve knowed him ev’ry sence he was big enough to rob a hen-roos’.”