"I want to get in there, Don John," added Laud, in a milder tone.

"Paddle your own canoe."

"You don't care anything about her."

"How do you know I don't?"

"Do you?"

"That's my affair."

"She don't care for you."

"Nor you, either."

"Perhaps not now, but I can make it all right with her," said Laud, as he twirled his colored mustache, which he probably regarded as a lady-killer. "Besides, you are not old enough to think of such things yet, Don John."

"Well, I don't think of such things yet," replied Donald, who really spoke only the truth, so far as he was consciously concerned.