“That’s jest w’at’s the matter,” observed the sheriff.
“But the ladies, my dear sir, the ladies——” began Punner.
“The weeming, they’ll hev kinveyances, young man, so ye kin jest shet up ef ye please,” the officer interrupted, with a good-natured wink and a knowing wag of his head.
A disinterested observer would have noted readily enough that the feast was far from a banquet. There was Ferris, for instance, munching a biscuit and sipping his wine and pretending to enjoy Punner’s sallies and Cattleton’s drolleries, while down in his heart lay the leaden thought, the hideous knowledge of an empty pocket. Indeed the reflection was a common one, weighting down almost every breast at the board.
One little incident did make even Ferris forget himself for a moment or two, it was when deaf Miss Nebeker misinterpreted some remark made by Hubbard and arose with a view to reciting The Jerseyman’s Jewsharp, with a new variation, “Oh, Jerseyman Joe had a Jewsharp of gold,” she began, in her most melodious drawl. She could not hear the protesting voices of her friends and she misinterpreted the stare of the sheriff.
“For the good heaven’s sake, Hubbard,” cried Lucas, “do use your influence; quick, please, or I shall collapse.”
Bartley Hubbard took hold of her dress and gently pulled her down into her chair.
“The sheriff objects!” he yelled in her ear.
“After dinner?” she resignedly inquired, “well, then after dinner, in the parlor.”
When the feast had come to the crumbs, Dunkirk arose and said: