Harden sprang to his feet crying: "St. Ives! a Thames 'Puffing Billy'! Oh, heavens! it makes me homesick."
Harden had named it; it was the absolute warning note of a busy, pudgy little Thames tug.
Some of them went over the table in their eagerness to investigate. Outside they stood aghast in silent wonderment; the hot, scorching sun lay like a yellow flame across the most archaic, disreputable caravan of one that had ever cast its disconsolate shadow upon the main street. A dejected, piebald cayuse hung limply between the shafts of a Red River cart whose appearance suggested that it had been constructed from broken bits of the ark. In the cart sat a weary semblance of humanity.
The man's face and hands were encrusted with a plastic mixture of dust and sweat till he looked like a lamellar creature—an armadillo. He turned small sullen eyes, in which was an impatient, querulous look, upon the six.
"It's a Trappist monk from the merry temple of Chartreuse," FitzHerbert declared solemnly.
"Do it again, bargee," Harden begged; "blow your horn, O Gabriel—there's vintage inside; one blast to warm the cockles of our hearts and we'll set you happy."
The little eyes of the charioteer fastened upon Harden with his cogent proposition; he made a trumpet of his palms, and blew the tug boat blast. He did it sadly, as though it were an occupation.
But Enders, with a spring, was in the cart. He picked up the slight figure and tossed it to the blond giant, who, catching the thing of buckskin and leather chapps, turned back into the bar.
"Sit you there, foghorn," FitzHerbert said, as he lowered the unresisting guest to a chair.
The guest's eyes had grown large with the confirmatory evidence of a keg; the spiggot fascinated him; it was like a crystal to a gazer. He shoved out a dry furred tongue and peeled from his lips the rim of lava that darkened their pale contours.