His
clothing was butternut, with bright blue tie, showing four inches of
bony wrist and white-socked ankle. He upset a chair, sat in another
one, curled a foot around a table leg and cringed at the approach of
a waiter.
"You may fetch me a glass of lager beer," he said, in response to the
discreet questioning of the servitor.
The eyes of the rathskeller were upon him. He was as fresh as a
collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake. He let his eye rove about
the place as one who regards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch.
His gaze rested at length upon Miss Carrington. He rose and went
to her table with a lateral, shining smile and a blush of pleased
trepidation.
"How're ye, Miss Posie?" he said in accents not to be doubted. "Don't
ye remember me--Bill Summers--the Summerses that lived back of the
blacksmith shop? I reckon I've growed up some since ye left Cranberry
Corners.
"'Liza Perry 'lowed I might see ye in the city while I was here. You
know 'Liza married Benny Stanfield, and she says--"
"Ah, say!" interrupted Miss Carrington, brightly, "Lize Perry is
never married--what! Oh, the freckles of her!"
"Married in June," grinned the gossip, "and livin' in the old Tatum
Place. Ham Riley perfessed religion; old Mrs. Blithers sold her place
to Cap'n Spooner; the youngest Waters girl run away with a music
teacher; the court-house burned up last March; your uncle Wiley was
elected constable; Matilda Hoskins died from runnin' a needle in her
hand, and Tom Beedle is courtin' Sallie Lathrop--they say he don't
miss a night but what he's settin' on their porch.
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