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“Air you the landlord?” he asked, as the host stepped forward to greet him.

He received a reply in the affirmative.

“This, then, is the Royal Oak tavern, and your name is Lapierre?”

Two nods signified the host’s further assent to these undeniable propositions.

“Have you got a spare bedroom, and can you put me up from now till Monday morning?”

The landlord again signified his assent, whereupon the stranger put down his cane and portmanteau on a bench and proceeded to divest himself of his wrapper.

“You haf had supper?” asked Lapierre.

“Well, I had a light tea down to Millbrook, but I know your Saturday night customs at the Royal Oak, and if you hain’t got any objections I’d like to take a hand in your eleven o’clock supper. To tell the truth, I’m sharp-set, and I know you always have a bite of something appetizing about that time.”

Upon being informed that supper would be ready at the usual hour, and that he would be welcome to a seat at the board, he signified a desire to be shown to his room, so that he could wash and make himself presentable. In response to an enquiry about his horse, he intimated that that animal for the present consisted of Shank’s mare; that he had ridden up from town with Squire Harrington, and dismounted at that gentleman’s gate. “The Squire offered to drive me on as far as here,” he added; “but as it was only a short walk I reckoned I’d come on afoot.”

Without further parley the guest was shown to his chamber, whence he emerged a few minutes later, and presented himself before the company assembled in the room behind the bar.

“Hope I ain’t intruding, gentlemen,” he remarked, as he took a vacant seat at the lower end of the table; “I’ve often heard of the good times you have here on Saturday nights. Heard of ’em when I was a good many hundred miles from here, and when I didn’t expect ever to have the pleasure of joining your mess. Guess I’d better introduce myself. My name’s Thomas Jefferson Haskins. I live at Nashville, Tennessee, where I keep a hotel and do a little in horseflesh now an’ agin. Now, I shall take it as a favor if you’ll allow the landlord to re-fill your glasses at my expense, and then drink good-luck to my expedition.” All this with much volubility, and without a trace of bashfulness.

The company all round the table signified their hearty acquiescence, and while the landlord was replenishing the tankards, the stranger proceeded to further enlighten them respecting his personal affairs. He informed them that a man had cleared out from Nashville about six months ago, leaving him, the speaker, in the lurch to the tune of twenty-seven hundred dollars. A few days since he had learned that the fugitive had taken up his quarters at Spotswood, in Upper Canada, and he had accordingly set out for that place with intent to obtain a settlement. He had reached Millbrook by the seven o’clock express this evening, only to find that he was still fifteen miles from his destination. Upon inquiry, he learned that the stage from Millbrook for Spotswood ran only once a day, leaving Millbrook at seven o’clock in the morning. There would not be another stage until Monday morning. He was on the point of hiring a special conveyance, and of driving through that night, when all of a sudden he had remembered that Lapierre’s tavern was on the Millbrook and Spotswood road, and only three miles away. He had long ago heard such accounts of the Royal Oak and its landlord, and particularly of the Saturday night suppers, that he had resolved to repair thither and remain over for Monday’s stage. “I was going to hire a livery to bring me out here,” he added, “but a gentleman named Squire Harrington, who heard me give the order for the buggy, told me he lived close by the Royal Oak, and that I was welcome to ride out with him, as he was just going to start for home. That saved me a couple of dollars. And so, here I be.”