"Do you find any market for your carving?"
"Selby takes it."
"Selby the contractor," explained Mrs. Bussey. "Sometimes people want hand-carved mantels and cornishes, and things like that. He makes quite a bit that way, Ben does."
"I won't unless I want to," drawled Ben.
"Does Selby come here with his orders?"
Ben looked at him with a slow, peculiar smile. "I can't very well go to him."
"I asked, because I had an impression that he was not on very friendly terms with the Underwood family, and I wondered if he would come to their house to see you."
"He don't see none of them," said Mrs. Bussey, with a lofty air. "He can come in by the side door and right off here to Ben's room. The doctor says as Ben and I shall have this part of the house for our own, and little enough, too, seeing what Henry done to Ben."
"Is Selby an old friend of yours?"
"Guess we've known him as long as anybody. When my old man was alive, he used to take Ort Selby out into the woods hunting and trapping with the Indians. He was great for that, my man was."