Hoxer felt indignant with himself that he should have allowed this interpretation to be placed on his presence here; then he still more resented the conjecture.
“I have not come for extra money,” he said. “That point of the transaction is closed.”
“All the points of the transaction are closed,” said Major Jeffrey, ungraciously. There was more than the flush of the waning western sky on his face. He had already dined, and he was one of those wine-bibbers whom drink does not render genial, “I want to hear no more about it.”
He turned to the table, and with a skilful cue sent one ball caroming against two others.
“But you must hear what I have got to say, Major Jeffrey,” protested Hoxer. “I built that cross-levee for you to join your main levee, and done it well.”
“And have been well paid.”
“But you go and say at the store that I deviated from the line of survey and saved one furlong, seven poles, and five feet of levee.”
“And so you did.”
“But you know, Major, that Burbeck Lake had shrunk in the drought at the time of the survey, and if I'd followed the calls for the south of the lake, I'd had to build in four feet of water, so I drew back a mite—you bein' in Orleans, where I couldn't consult you, an' no time to be lost nohow, the river bein' then on the rise, an'——”
“Look here, fellow,” exclaimed Major Jeffrey, bringing the cue down on the table with a force that must have cut the cloth, “do you suppose that I have nothing better to do than to stand here to listen to your fool harangue?”