“I mean with the other boarders.”
Mr. Sewell paused in the act of lifting a chop from the fire, and, resting the point of his fork against the woodwork of the mantelpiece, grinned from ear to ear.
“Bless you! there is n't any other boarders. There has n't been anybody put up here sence—let me see—sence father-in-law died, and that was in the fall of '40. To be sure, there 's Silas; he's a regular boarder; but I don't count him.”
Mr. Sewell then explained how the tavern had lost its custom when the old stage line was broken up by the railroad. The introduction of steam was, in Mr. Sewell's estimation, a fatal error. “Jest killed local business. Carried it off, I 'm darned if I know where. The whole country has been sort o' retrograding ever sence steam was invented.”
“You spoke of having one boarder,” I said.
“Silas? Yes; he come here the summer 'Tilda died—she that was 'Tilda Bayley—and he 's here yet, going on thirteen year. He could n't live any longer with the old man. Between you and I, old Clem Jaffrey, Silas's father, was a hard nut. Yes,” said Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable pantomime, “altogether too often. Found dead in the road hugging a three-gallon demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn,” added Mr. Sewell, intending, I presume, to intimate that a post-mortem examination had been deemed necessary. “Silas,” he resumed, in that respectful tone which one should always adopt when speaking of capital, “is a man of considerable property; lives on his interest, and keeps a hoss and shay. He 's a great scholar, too, Silas; takes all the pe-ri-odicals and the Police Gazette regular.”
Mr. Sewell was turning over a third chop, when the door opened and a stoutish, middle-aged little gentleman, clad in deep black, stepped into the room.
“Silas Jaffrey,” said Mr. Sewell, with a comprehensive sweep of his arm, picking up me and the new-comer on one fork, so to speak. “Be acquainted!”
Mr. Jaffrey advanced briskly, and gave me his hand with unlooked-for cordiality. He was a dapper little man, with a head as round and nearly as bald as an orange, and not unlike an orange in complexion, either; he had twinkling gray eyes and a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles upon which were deepened by his funereal dress-coat and trousers. He reminded me of Alfred de Musset's blackbird, which, with its yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked like an undertaker eating an omelet.
“Silas will take care of you,” said Mr. Sewell, taking down his hat from a peg behind the door. “I 've got the cattle to look after. Tell him, if you want anything.”