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“P’r’aps ye’d better hold on a second out yer, whilst I go in and see thet things is all right,” said the Old Man, with an indifference he was far from feeling. The suggestion was graciously accepted, the door opened and closed on the host, and the crowd, leaning their backs against the wall and cowering under the eaves, waited and listened.

For a few moments there was no sound but the dripping of water from the eaves, and the stir and rustle of wrestling boughs above them. Then the men became uneasy, and whispered suggestion and suspicion passed from the one to the other. “Reckon she’s caved in his head the first lick!” “Decoyed him inter the tunnel and barred him up, likely.” “Got him down and sittin’ on him.” “Prob’ly bilin suthin to heave on us: stand clear the door, boys!” For just then the latch clicked, the door slowly opened, and a voice said, “Come in out o’ the wet.”

The voice was neither that of the Old Man nor of his wife. It was the voice of a small boy, its weak treble broken by that preternatural hoarseness which only vagabondage and the habit of premature self-assertion can give. It was the face of a small boy that looked up at theirs,–a face that might have been pretty and even refined but that it was darkened by evil knowledge from within, and dirt and hard experience from without. He had a blanket around his shoulders and had evidently just risen from his bed. “Come in,” he repeated, “and don’t make no noise. The Old Man’s in there talking to mar,” he continued, pointing to an adjacent room which seemed to be a kitchen, from which the Old Man’s voice came in deprecating accents. “Let me be,” he added, querulously, to Dick Bullen, who had caught him up, blanket and all, and was affecting to toss him into the fire, “let go o’ me, you d—-d old fool, d’ye hear?”

Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the ground with a smothered laugh, while the men, entering quietly, ranged themselves around a long table of rough boards which occupied the centre of the room. Johnny then gravely proceeded to a cupboard and brought out several articles which he deposited on the table. “Thar’s whiskey. And crackers. And red herons. And cheese.” He took a bite of the latter on his way to the table. “And sugar.” He scooped up a mouthful en route with a small and very dirty hand. “And terbacker. Thar’s dried appils too on the shelf, but I don’t admire ’em. Appils is swellin’. Thar,” he concluded, “now wade in, and don’t be afeard. I don’t mind the old woman. She don’t b’long to ME. S’long.”

He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, scarcely larger than a closet, partitioned off from the main apartment, and holding in its dim recess a small bed. He stood there a moment looking at the company, his bare feet peeping from the blanket, and nodded.

“Hello, Johnny! You ain’t goin’ to turn in agin, are ye?” said Dick.

“Yes, I are,” responded Johnny, decidedly.

“Why, wot’s up, old fellow?”

“I’m sick.”

“How sick!”

“I’ve got a fevier. And childblains. And roomatiz,” returned Johnny, and vanished within. After a moment’s pause, he added in the dark, apparently from under the bedclothes,–“And biles!”

There was an embarrassing silence. The men looked at each other, and at the fire. Even with the appetizing banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of Thompson’s grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecatingly from the kitchen.

“Certainly! Thet’s so. In course they is. A gang o’ lazy drunken loafers, and that ar Dick Bullen’s the ornariest of all. Didn’t hev no more sabe than to come round yar with sickness in the house and no provision. Thet’s what I said: ‘Bullen,’ sez I, ‘it’s crazy drunk you are, or a fool,’ sez I, ‘to think o’ such a thing.’ ‘Staples,’ I sez, ‘be you a man, Staples, and ‘spect to raise h-ll under my roof and invalids lyin’ round?’ But they would come,–they would. Thet’s wot you must ‘spect o’ such trash as lays round the Bar.”