"Mebbe hit air you 'at air a running this yer chebang," said Tolliver with a scowl. "I'll jes' let ye out w'en I git ready an' not a minute sooner, nother. So ye've hearn my tin horn." Miss Stackpole and Miss Crabb made notes in amazing haste. Hubbard shrugged his heavy shoulders and bit his lip. He was baffled. "Do you think they'll kill us?" murmured Miss Moyne in Dufour's ear. Dufour could not answer. Crane and his "pap's uncle Pete" were still hobnobbing over the jug. "Yer's a lookin' at ye, boy, an' a hopin' agin hope 'at ye may turn out ter be es likely a man es yer pap," the old man was saying, preliminary to another draught. Crane was bowing with extreme politeness in acknowledgement of the sentiment, and was saying: "I am told that I look like my father----" "Yes, ye do look a leetle like im," interrupted the old man with a leer over the jug, "but l'me say at it air dern leetle, boy, dern leetle!" Punner overhearing this reply, laughed uproariously. Crane appeared oblivious to the whole force of the joke, however. He was simply waiting for his turn at the jug. "As I wer' a sayin'," resumed the old man, "yer's er hopin' agin' hope, an' a lookin' at ye----" "How utterly brutal and disgusting!" cried Mrs. Nancy Jones Black. "I must leave here, I cannot bear it longer! This is nothing but a low, vile dram-shop! Let me pass!" She attempted to go through the doorway, but Tolliver interfered. "Stay wher' ye air," he said, in a respectful but very stern tone. "Ye can't git out o' yer jist yit." "Dear me! Dear me!" wailed Mrs. Black, "what an outrage, what an insult! Are you men?" she cried, turning upon the gentlemen near her, "and will you brook this?" "Give me your handkerchiefs again," said Cattleton, "and I will once more poke out my head; 'tis all that I can do!" "Shoot the fust head 'at comes out'n thet ther winder, Dave!" ordered Tolliver, speaking to some one outside. "I don't care for any handkerchiefs, thank you," said Cattleton, "I've changed my mind." Miss Moyne was holding Dufour's arm with a nervous clutch, her eyes were full of tears, and she was trembling violently. He strove to quiet her by telling her that there was no danger, that he would shield her, die for her and all that; but Tolliver looked so grim and the situation was so strange and threatening that she could not control herself. "Goodness! but isn't this rich material," Miss Crabb soliloquized, writing in her little red book with might and main. "Bret Harte never discovered anything better." Miss Henrietta Stackpole was too busy absorbing the human interest of the interview between the two Cranes, to be more than indirectly aware of anything else that was going on around her. "Ye needn't be erfeard as ter bein' hurt, boy," said the old man, "not es long es yer pap's uncle Pete air eroun' yer. Hit ain't often 'at I meets up wi' kinfolks downyer, an' w'en I does meet up wi' 'em I treats 'em es er Southern gen'l'man orter treat his kinfolks."