Mr. Pindar fluttered vivaciously; he was certainly more like a bat than the Flying Dutchman. "I apologize!" he cried. "I have been at fault, Homer, I admit it. To own him wrong, the haughty spirit bows—no more of it! The past"—he swept it away with one wing—"is buried. This night its obsequies! Hung be the heavens with black; a pickaxe and a spade, a spade; other remarks of a similar nature. Homer, our cousin Marcia loved me not!" (it was true. "I can stand a beetle," Mrs. Tree was used to say, "or I can stand a bat; but a bat-beetle, and a dancing one at that, is more than I can abide. Cat's foot! don't talk to me!").
"Yet when I heard—through the medium of the public prints—that she was no more, I felt a pang, sir, a pang. I would have assisted at the funeral solemnities; it would have been a pleasure to me to compose a dirge; the first strophe even suggested itself to me. 'Ta-ta, tarum, tarum' (muffled drums); 'ta tee, ta tidol' (trombones); but these things require time, sir, time."
"Surely!" said Mr. Homer, with a meek bow; "surely; and indeed, Pindar, the ceremonies were of the simplest description, in accordance with the wishes of our revered and deceased relative. But sit down, my dear brother; sit down, and let me procure some refreshment;—a—sustenance;—a—bodily pabulum, for you. Have you come far, may I ask?"
"From the metropolis, sir; from New York!" replied Mr. Pindar, seating himself and throwing back his little batlike cloak.
"By rail to the Junction; the evening stage, a jolt, a rattle, and a crawl,—behold me! A crust, Homer, a crust! no disturbance of domestic equilibrium. A consort lurks within?"
"I beg your pardon, Brother!" said Mr. Homer, with a bewildered look.
"A wife, sir, a wife!" said Mr. Pindar. "Are you married, Homer?"
"Oh, no; no, indeed, my dear brother!" said Mr. Homer, hastily, and blushing very red. "Nothing of the kind, I assure you. And you?"
"Perish the thought!" said Mr. Pindar; and he waved the Sex out of existence.
Mr. Homer looked troubled, but hastened out of the room, and, after some ineffective appeals to Tommy, who, as we know, was talking with Annie Lizzie at the gate, foraged for himself, and returned with crackers and cheese, doughnuts and cider. Seated together at this simple feast, the two brothers looked at each other once more, and both rubbed their hands with precisely the same gesture.