“That’s the way with them editors,” cried the old man. “They allus forgits important points. They expects a man to know everything.”
“I guess that them must ’a’ ben pound o’ somethin’ they raised on the place,” the Tinsmith suggested.
“That’s jest the way I looked at it,” the Loafer continued. “It didn’t make no difference, anyhow, ez long ez she hed somethin’ to live on. This here Lord Desmon hed a placet near hers an’ used to ride over every day regular an’ set up with her. He was tall an’ hed keen black eyes. Wherever he went he tuk with him a hound he called M-e-p-h-i-s-t-o or somethin’ like that.”
“Now ye mind that he hed no real claim on the Desmon placet an’ he knowd it. Before his pap died he hed called him to his bedside an’ sayd to him, ‘Beware of a man with an eagle tattooed on his right arm. He’s the real hair.’ So Lord re’lized that he was livin’ on a farm that belonged to the son o’ his pap’s brother. He knowd that afore his uncle died he’d sent word home that his son an’ hair could be told be the eagle. Of course the warnin’ made Lord kind o’ oneasy at first, but ez the years went by an’ he heard nawthin’ o’ his cousin he concided that the ole man hed jest ben th’owin’ a scare inter him. Meantime he’d ben doin’ wery well with Alice Fairfax, an’ things was all goin’ his way. Then a strange artist come th’oo the walley. He was paintin’——”
The Patriarch interrupted with a hilarious chuckle.
“Now, boys, look out,” he cried. “They never yit was a painter that wasn’t catchin’ with the weemen. Ye mind Bill Spiegelsole’s widdy an’ how she’d fixed it up to merry Joe Dumple? She hired a regular painter to come out from town to put a new coat on the house, an’ he made himself so all-fired handy ’round the placet mendin’ stove-pipes, puttin’ in glass an’ slickin’ up the furnitur’ she took him afore Joe got there.”
“This here artist wasn’t one o’ that kind,” the Loafer said. “He made them regular hand-paintin’s they hangs in parlors, an’ done a leetle in the way o’ portrates. He put up at the tavern an’ then started out fer a stroll th’oo the Fairfax placet. He hed jest entered the park, the paper sayd, ’hen——”
“The what?” asked the Miller.
“The park. Don’t ye know, one o’ them places fixed up special fer walkin’ in, with benches, an’ brick pavements, a fountain, an’ flower-beds an’ a crowket set. Hain’t ye never seen the one at Horrisburg?”
“Oh, one o’ them!” the Miller said. “Well, I guesst those must ’a’ ben pound o’ gold Alice Fairfax got a year.”