"It must be awful lonesome fer him," she observed, to which there was no reply. "Ain't it?" she asked, after an interval. "Ain't what?" said David, looking up at her. "Awful lonesome," she reiterated. "Guess nobody ain't ever very lonesome when you're 'round an' got your breath," was the reply. "What you talkin' about?" "I ain't talkin' about you, 't any rate," said Mrs. Bixbee. "I was sayin' it must be awful lonesome fer Mr. Lenox up here where he don't know a soul hardly, an' livin' at that hole of a tavern." "I don't see 't you've any cause to complain long's he don't," said David, hoping that it would not come to his sister's ears that he had, for reasons of his own, discouraged any attempt on John's part to better his quarters, "an' he hain't ben very lonesome daytimes, I guess, so fur, 'thout he's ben makin' work fer himself to kill time." "What do you mean?" "Wa'al," said David, "we found that Chet hadn't done more 'n to give matters a lick an' a promise in most a year. He done just enough to keep up the day's work an' no more an' the upshot on't is that John's had to put in consid'able time to git things straightened out." "What a shame!" exclaimed Aunt Polly. "Keeps him f'm bein' lonesome," remarked her brother with a grin. "An' he hain't had no time to himself!" she protested. "I don't believe you've made up your mind yet whether you're goin' to like him, an' I don't believe he'll _stay_ anyway." "I've told more 'n forty-leven times," said Mr. Harum, looking up over his paper, "that I thought we was goin' to make a hitch of it, an' he cert'nly hain't said nuthin' 'bout leavin', an' I guess he won't fer a while, tavern or no tavern. He's got a putty stiff upper lip of his own, I reckon," David further remarked, with a short laugh, causing Mrs. Bixbee to look up at him inquiringly, which look the speaker answered with a nod, saying, "Me an' him had a little go-round to-day." "You hain't had no _words_, hev ye?" she asked anxiously. "Wa'al, we didn't have what ye might call _words_. I was jest tryin' a little experiment with him." "Humph," she remarked, "you're alwus tryin' exper'ments on somebody, an' you'll be liable to git ketched at it some day." "Exceptin' on you," said David. "You don't think I'd try any experiments on you, do ye?" "Me!" she cried. "You're at me the hull endurin' time, an' you know it." "Wa'al, but Polly," said David insinuatingly, "you don't know how int'restin' you _be_." "Glad you think so," she declared, with a sniff and a toss of the head. "What you ben up to with Mr. Lenox?" "Oh, nuthin' much," replied Mr. Harum, making a feint of resuming his reading. "Be ye goin' to tell me, or--air ye too _'shamed_ on't?" she added with a little laugh, which somewhat turned the tables on her teasing brother. "Wa'al, I laid out to try an' read this paper," he said, spreading it out on his lap, "but," resignedly, "I guess 't ain't no use. Do you know what a count'fit bill is?" he asked.