Shaver lifted a startled face to The Hopper.
"Mamma's cwyin'; gwanpa's hurted mamma!"
The strategic moment had arrived when Shaver must be thrust forward as an interruption to the exchange of disagreeable epithets by his grandfathers.
"You trot right in there t' yer ma, Shaver. Ole Hop ain't goin' t' let 'em hurt ye!"
He led the child through the dining room to the living-room door and pushed him gently on the scene of strife. Talbot, senior, was pacing the floor with angry strides, declaiming upon his wrongs,—indeed, his theme might have been the misery of the whole human race from the vigor of his lamentations. His son was keeping step with him, vainly attempting to persuade him to sit down. Wilton, with a patch over his right eye, was trying to disengage himself from his daughter's arms with the obvious intention of doing violence to his neighbor.
"I'm sure papa never meant to hurt you; it was all a dreadful mistake," she moaned.
"He had an accomplice," Talbot thundered, "and while he was trying to kill me there in my own house the plum-blossom vase was carried off; and if Roger hadn't pushed him out of the window after his hireling—I'd—I'd—"
A shriek from Muriel happily prevented the completion of a sentence that gave every promise of intensifying the prevailing hard feeling.
"Look!" Muriel cried. "It's Billie come back! Oh, Billie!"
She sprang toward the door and clasped the frightened child to her heart. The three men gathered round them, staring dully. The Hopper from behind the door waited for Muriel's joy over Billie's return to communicate itself to his father and the two grandfathers.