"What on airth does all that mean?" said Captain Boomsby, rising with difficulty from his chair, and walking towards the front door.
"I'm sure I don't know," I replied. "I saw Nick leap over the counter as though he had found a mocassin-snake behind it."
"Don't say nothin' about mocassins here, for you scart my wife out of her seven senses once afore," said the captain, savagely, as he stopped and looked at me.
He had set a trap to have such a snake bite me in his house; but I was not thinking of that when I named the venomous reptile. This event, and the quantity of his own vile fluids he consumed, made him sensitive on the subject of snakes. I was afraid he would soon see more of them than he could manage.
"What made Nick run out so quick, and what did Peverell follow him for, without payin' for his liquor?" continued Captain Boomsby, when he had properly admonished me in regard to the snakes.
"I don't know, sir," I replied. "Who was the man that followed Nick?"
"That was Peverell."
"Who is Peverell?" I asked. "What does he do?"
"He is the messenger, I believe they call him, of the First National Bank of Florida."
"That explains it all, then," I added, beginning to understand the situation.