“An’ I was thinkin’ the same thing when I got sight o’ you an’ concluded we wouldn’t.”
“Concluded we wouldn’t?”
“Ye see, I ’lowed ’twas only yer ghost I was lookin’ at. Ye’ve either had poor victuals or a poor appetite.”
Rodney had the first hearty laugh he enjoyed for months and replied, “I’ve been pretty sick and am lucky to have any sort of looks left. But what are you doing in Philadelphia?”
“I’m hangin’ around this town hopin’ the schooner Betsy has escaped the British and will bring my wife.”
“Your wife?”
“All the result o’ my furlough in Boston.”
“So Melicite, of whom Donald Lovell told me so much, consented. Zeb, you’re a born conqueror. When you found you couldn’t capture Canada you won a wife.”
“More to my likin’ than the whole o’ Canada. Now I’m wonderin’ how I’m goin’ to support her. A soldier’s pay for a month won’t buy more’n a pinch o’ salt, an’ salt ain’t very fillin’ ’thout somethin’ to go along with it.”