Before Mr. Tutt could answer, Mr. Van Kamp hurried in at the door.
"Wait a moment!" he cried. "I want to bid on that!"
"This here jug hain't fer sale at no price," Uncle Billy emphatically
announced, nipping all negotiations right in the bud. "It's too pesky
hard to sneak this here licker in past Marge't, but I reckon it's my
treat, gents. Ye kin have all ye want."
One minute later Mr. Van Kamp and Mr. Ellsworth were seated, one on a
sawbuck and the other on a nail-keg, comfortably eyeing each other
across the work bench, and each was holding up a tumbler one-third
filled with the golden yellow liquid.
"Your health, sir," courteously proposed Mr. Ellsworth.
"And to you, sir," gravely replied Mr. Van Kamp.
XI
Ralph and Evelyn happened to meet at the pump, quite accidentally,
after the former had made half a dozen five-minute-apart trips for a
drink. It was Miss Van Kamp, this time, who had been studying on the
mutual acquaintance problem.
"You don't happen to know the Tylers, of Parkersburg, do you?" she
asked.
"The Tylers! I should say I do!" was the unexpected and enthusiastic
reply.
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