He checked himself, with a glance at the stick that never left Tommy's side; but Tommy finished the sentence simply:
"A leg! that's what we'll do. I'd give my good leg, let alone the poor one; I shouldn't have had that if it hadn't been for her; if she hadn't sent for Doctor Strong that day. Old Pottle was going to take it off, you know. 'I'll take off your ears first!' she says, and 'rap' goes her stick. 'Ninnyhammer!' she says; 'noodle!' she says; 'send for Geoffrey Strong.' That rap was the first thing I heard; I believe it brought me back, too, from—from wherever there is. Gorry! I wish't I could bring her back!"
"We cannot do that, Tommy," said Will Jaquith, sadly; "but what we can do, we will. Now about this—lady!"
"Look-a-here!" said Tommy, eagerly. "I don't believe but what this fays in with what has been goin' on here. Last night—" and he told briefly of the advent of Mr. Pindar.
"He's plum crazy," he added, "crazy as a loon; but yet it's a knowin' kind of crazy, and I don't believe but what he could help us."
Will pondered. "I should not wonder if he could, Tom," he said at length. "I'd like to see him, anyhow. Where is he, and where is Mr. Homer?"
"Mr. Homer's gone for a walk," said Tommy. "He was all worked up about his brother's comin', and some kind of rinktum he wants to get up, here in the village; kind of crazy circus, near as I could make out from the little he said. He didn't eat hardly any breakfast, and Direxia was in a caniption, so I got him to go for a walk in the woods, to ca'm him down. That ca'ms him down better than 'most anything, generally, unless it's Miss Wax's barrel-organ, and she's busy mornin's. Come in, Will. The other one wasn't down when I come out, but I presume likely he is now. I tell you he's a queer one!"
They went in; and, sure enough, Mr. Pindar was in the dining-room, eating toast and marmalade, and holding forth to Direxia Hawkes, who stood in the doorway, half-admiring, half-distrustful. Her early opinion of Pindar Hollopeter had been unfavorable, but he certainly had an elegant way with him, and used beautiful language.
"The orange," he was saying, as he waved a spoonful of the translucent sweetmeat, "has ever been the friend of man; unless, indeed, we share the view of those who hold that it was the original Apple of Discord. The answer to this theory would appear to lie in the fact that it is not an apple at all. But soft! whom have we here? A stranger! alarums and entrances. Enter mysterious individual, r. u. e."
"It's Willy Jaquith and Tommy," said Direxia. "I'll go now; if you want more toast, you can ring the bell."