“Yes, I know,” acquiesced Ichabod.
The agent took a chair behind the battered pine desk, and pointed to another opposite.
“Any way I can help you?” he suggested.
“Yes,” answered Maurice. “I’m thinking of taking a homestead.”
The agent looked his visitor up and down and back again; then, being native born, his surprise broke forth in idiom.
“Well, I’m jiggered!” he avowed.
It was Ichabod’s turn to make observation.
“I believe you; you look it,” he corroborated at length. 137
Again the little man stared; and in the silence following, a hungry-looking bird-dog thrust his thin muzzle in at the door, and sniffed.
“Get out,” shouted the owner at the intruder, adding in extenuation: “I’m busy.” He certainly was “jiggered.”