“Short, thick-set, blocky face.”
“I reckon I know,” said Breast, bringing down his fist on the wagon board; “I've had my eye on him for some little time.”
He walked around the block twice after Captain Grant had driven down the muddy street, before he composed himself to enter the Carvel mansion. He paid no attention to the salutations of Jackson, the butler, who saw him coming and opened the door, but climbed the stairs to the sitting-room.
“Why, Captain Lige, you must have put wings on the Louisiana,” said Virginia, rising joyfully from the arm of her father's chair to meet him. “We had given you up.”
“What?” cried the Captain. “Give me up? Don't you know better than that? What, give me up when I never missed a birthday,—and this the best of all of 'em.
“If your pa had got sight of me shovin' in wood and cussin' the pilot for slowin' at the crossin's, he'd never let you ride in my boat again. Bill Jenks said: 'Are you plum crazy, Brent? Look at them cressets.' 'Five dollars' says I; 'wouldn't go in for five hundred. To-morrow's Jinny Carvel's birthday, and I've just got to be there.' I reckon the time's come when I've got to say Miss Jinny,” he added ruefully.
The Colonel rose, laughing, and hit the Captain on the back.
“Drat you, Lige, why don't you kiss the girl? Can't you see she's waiting?”
The honest Captain stole one glance at Virginia, and turned red copper color.
“Shucks, Colonel, I can't be kissing her always. What'll her husband say?”