"Dave Cabarreux is his cousin once removed," interrupted Bright the landlord, who had sauntered back with the major, and engineered that unsteady worthy to a place on the trough. "He hes no other kin than Dave, that I know of. David's as genteel a young man as walks Sevier streets." "He's a damned cub!" The major staggered to his feet, gesticulating angrily with his trembling hands. "Tut, tut, Sam! sit down," said the squire, pulling at his coat-tail. "You begrudge Dave his pretty little sweetheart. I understand: I've watched you. Why, Fetridge, you're old enough to be her father, you moon-calf!" Sam stiffened his shaky body into a drunken dignity: "Squire, you can talk of me as you choose: every scrag-end of humanity kin take liberties with my name now, and does it. But the pump is no place to mention that lady, nor any lady, sir." "No, it's not: that's a fact, Sam. I beg her pardon. But Primus tells me, gentlemen, that the jedge has been talkin' incessant of his nephew Boyer. Who's Boyer?" "I've heerd the jedge talk of him frequent, sittin' on that very cheer," said Byloe the carpenter. "He's his grand-nephew. Peter Marmyduke Boyer is the full name. Governor of Iowy. The jedge has told me he was one of the first men of the present century. He'd all the genius of the Scroope family. Fact is, I used to think he was a straw man the jedge had made expressly to hang the honors of the family on." "What's the jedge callin' on him now for?" said the major. The doctor glanced around cautiously to the circle of attentive faces, the silent street beyond, the houses that fenced them in: "It's my opinion--in strict confidence, gentlemen," lowering his voice: the faces gathered more closely, Sam's, pimpled and eager, the nearest--"it's my opinion that the jedge means to cut off Dave without a shilling, and leave the proputty to this Honorable Peter M. Boyer. But what's the difference?" he continued after waiting a moment to allow the sensation produced by his words to subside. "This man Boyer, they tell me, has not been heard of for years. He didn't even turn up in the war. Undoubtedly, he's dead." Major Fetridge sank back against the pump with a drunken chuckle: "Dave Cabarreux thinks that he's dead, hey? Boyer's not the sort of man to die as long as a good thing like this is in the dice. Why, Boyer's young, sir. He's got more brains and experience and vitality than all the damned wooden Cabarreuxes in a lump." Byloe squirted tobacco-juice skilfully into the puddle between his feet, and winked at the squire. "It would go dead ag'in' your chances down at Calhoun's, major, if Dave gets that proputty," he said gravely. "Old Tony Calhoun is a full-blood Yankee. He'll never give his daughter to a man with lean pockets."