The colonel looked at me with scorn; and just then a peal of rippling laughter, melodious as the waves of the Tennessee upon Muscle Shoals, rang through the thin partition, accompanied by the crash of some falling missile, I think, a hair-brush. “Does that look as if they wuz married?” said he, and turned upon his heel, as one who gave me up at last. “Supper’s at six,” he added, relenting, at the door. Coe turned up at supper, but we saw nothing of the fair actresses; and the evening we passed socially with the leading spirits of the hotel: Judge Hankinson, Colonel Wilkinson, General McBride, Tim Healy, the railroad contractor, and two or three black bottles. Colonel Wilkinson and General McBride had been trying a case before Judge Hankinson, and both were disposed to criticise the latter’s rulings, but amiably, as became gentlemen over a whiskey-bottle in the evening. At midnight, just as the judge was ordering a fourth bottle, the door opened, and in walked a very beautiful young woman with black hair and eyes. “Good-evening, Miss Juliet,” said the others, as we rose and bowed. Miss Juliet walked up to the judge, who with difficulty got up, and followed her out of the room. “Good-night, jedge,” and in the pause that followed, General McBride remarked pathetically that “the jedge wasn’t what he used to wuz.” “No,” said the colonel, with a sigh, “I’ve seen the time when he wouldn’t leave a third bottle of his own.” “What relation is Miss Juliet to Judge Wilkinson?” asked Coe. The general and the colonel started; and Tim Healy looked apprehensively at the door. “Young man,” said the general, “I wouldn’t ask that question, if I wuz you.” “The jedge ken still shoot,” added the colonel. All was forgiven when I had explained that Mr. Coe was an Englishman; and we went to bed. About two in the morning the adjoining rooms became suddenly populous with soft voices. Coe started to his elbow in his cot and called to me. “It’s only the Amateur Shakespeare Comedy Club of Knoxville, returning from the play,” said I; and I dropped asleep and dreamed confusedly of Tuscumbia, the Indian chieftain, feminine voices, and the rippling waters of the Tennessee.