Mr. Himmelstein darted to a box in the extreme back part of his establishment, and after some moment's digging in its depths, brought out a flat derby of the style of twenty years past, and a pair of "needle pointers," number twelves.
"If your man can vear dese," he inveigled Mr. Doggett, "you can haf de great bargain for t'ree quarter of von dollar unt I t'row in de hat for von nickel unt two dimes more."
Mr. Doggett concluded to take the risk of their fitting, and had them wrapped up.
"Before we leave town," observed Dunaway, as Mr. Doggett took the reins, "I'd like to tell you I'm about out of chewing tobacco. 'Lady Isabel' is the brand I use."
"What's the matter with long green?" Mr. Doggett's tone was persuasive. "I've got a world o' that hanging up at home."
Dunaway coughed apologetically. "My stomach is delicate," he declared airily, "and anything but the Lady Isabel seems to irritate it."
Mr. Doggett climbed to the pavement once more and three minutes later a package of the "Lady Isabel" was added to the company of bundles under the buggy's seat.
Mr. Dunaway, on the drive, proved to be a most agreeable talker, oily of tongue,—eloquently mendacious. He explained to Mr. Doggett the circumstances that had brought him to his present state. His family was one of wealth and high social position, he said, and he had never known a care until the failure and death of his father. Since that time, travelling with a party of surveyors in the Arkansas swamps, he had contracted malaria, had drifted to Kentucky, and had married. Because of his delicacy, his wife had persuaded her father to allow them to remain with him for a while and the vagrancy proceedings were taken without hint to him that the old gentleman was weary of his presence. He was astounded at this cruel treatment, and could hardly believe that his two trunks of clothing would be withheld from him.
Mr. Doggett listened respectfully, with expressions of interest and sympathy,—and drew his own conclusions.
Mr. Dunaway's garments were neat in appearance, his face was newly shaved, and the visible portions of his person were clean, but, mindful of the suspicions that would be sure to arise in Mrs. Doggett's mind as to the personal cleanliness of a gentleman convicted of vagrancy, unless she had actual convincing evidence of the recent application of water to his epidermis, Mr. Doggett stopped when they reached a covered bridge, spanning a stream that crossed the road.