"I wish mother was here!" he said. "She'd know just to say and how to say it."
"She's too far away; leastways, I suppose she is," said the barkeeper.
"I know it," whispered the wounded man; "an' yet a woman—"
Baggs looked inquiringly, appealingly about him, but seemed unable to finish his sentence. His glance finally rested upon Brownie, a man as characteristic as himself, but at times displaying rather more heart than was common among Enders. Brownie obeyed the summons, and stooped beside Baggs. The bystanders noticed that there followed some whispering, at times shame-faced, and then in the agony of earnestness on the part of Baggs, and replied to by Brownie with averted face and eyes gazing into nowhere.
Finally Brownie arose with an un-Ender-like decision, and left the saloon. No one else said much, but there seemed to circulate an impression that Baggs was consuming more time than was customary at the End.
Very different was the scene in Mrs. Wader's parlor; instead of a dying man surrounded by uncouth beings, there stood a beautiful woman, radiant with health and animation; while about her stood a throng of well-dressed gentlemen, some of them handsome, all of them smart, and each one craving a smile, a word, or a look. Suddenly the pompous voice of General Wader arose:
"Most astonishing thing I ever heard of," said he. "An Ender has the impudence to ask to see Miss Fewne!"
"An Ender?" exclaimed the lady, her pretty lips parting with surprise.
"Yes, and he declares you could not have the heart to say no, if you knew his story."
"Is it possible, Miss Fewne," asked one admirer, "that your cruelty can have driven any one to have become an Ender?"