Miss Stackpole and Miss Crabb made notes in amazing haste.
Hubbard shrugged his heavy shoulders and bit his lip. He was baffled.
“Do you think they’ll kill us?” murmured Miss Moyne in Dufour’s ear.
Dufour could not answer.
Crane and his “pap’s uncle Pete” were still hobnobbing over the jug.
“Yer’s a lookin’ at ye, boy, an’ a hopin’ agin hope ’at ye may turn out ter be es likely a man es yer pap,” the old man was saying, preliminary to another draught.
Crane was bowing with extreme politeness in acknowledgement of the sentiment, and was saying:
“I am told that I look like my father——”
“Yes, ye do look a leetle like im,” interrupted the old man with a leer over the jug, “but l’me say at it air dern leetle, boy, dern leetle!”
Punner overhearing this reply, laughed uproariously. Crane appeared oblivious to the whole force of the joke, however. He was simply waiting for his turn at the jug.