I had one of them long-haired, foreign cats once that a British skipper gave me. 'Twas a yeller and black one and it fell overboard. When we fished it out it looked just like the Kelly woman done then. Everybody but Beriah just screeched—we couldn't help it. But the prophet didn't laugh; he only kept on grinning.
Emma looked once round the room, and her eyes, as well as you could see 'em through the snarl of dripping hair and hat-trimming, fairly snapped. Then she went up the stairs three steps at a time.
Eben didn't say a word. He just stood there and leaked. Leaked and smiled. Yes, sir! his face, over the mess that had been that rainbow necktie, had the funniest look of idiotic joy on it that ever I see. In a minute everybody else shut up. We didn't know what to make of it.
'Twas Beriah that spoke first.
“He! he! he!” he chuckled. “He! he! he! Wasn't it kind of wet coming through the woods, Mr. Cobb? What does Mrs. Kelly think of the day her beau picked out to go to camp-meeting in?”
Then Eben came out of his trance.
“Beriah,” says he, holding out a dripping flipper, “shake!”
But Beriah didn't shake. Just stood still.
“I've got a s'prise for you, shipmate,” goes on Eben. “Who did you say that lady was?”
Beriah didn't answer. I begun to think that some of the wet had soaked through the assistant prophet's skull and had give him water on the brain.