[Illustration: DAVID HARUM, Act III] "Wa'al, I never!" said David, holding his knife and fork straight up in either fist as they rested on the table, and staring at his sister. "I believe if the meetin'-house roof was to blow off you'd lay it on to me somehow. I hain't ben runnin' the Eagle tavern fer quite a consid'able while. You got the wrong pig by the ear as usual. Jes' you pitch into him," pointing with his fork to John. "It's his funeral, if anybody's." "Wa'al," said Aunt Polly, addressing John in a tone of injury, "I do think you might have let somebody know; I think you'd ortter 've known----" "Yes, Mrs. Bixbee," he interrupted, "I did know how kind you are and would have been, and if matters had gone on so much longer I should have appealed to you, I should have indeed; but really," he added, smiling at her, "a dinner like this is worth fasting a week for." "Wa'al," she said, mollified again, "you won't git no more herrin' 'nless you ask for 'em." "That is just what your brother said this morning," replied John, looking at David with a laugh. CHAPTER VII The meal proceeded in silence for a few minutes. Mrs. Cullom had said but little, but John noticed that her diction was more conventional than in her talk with David and himself in the morning, and that her manner at the table was distinctly refined, although she ate with apparent appetite, not to say hunger. Presently she said, with an air of making conversation, "I suppose you've always lived in the city, Mr. Lenox?" "It has always been my home," he replied, "but I have been away a good deal." "I suppose folks in the city go to theaters a good deal," she remarked. "They have a great many opportunities," said John, wondering what she was leading up to. But he was not to discover, for David broke in with a chuckle. "Ask Polly, Mis' Cullom," he said. "She c'n tell ye all about the theater, Polly kin." Mrs. Cullom looked from David to Mrs. Bixbee, whose face was suffused. "Tell her," said David, with a grin. "I wish you'd shet up," she exclaimed. "I sha'n't do nothin' of the sort." "Ne' mind," said David cheerfully. "_I'll_ tell ye, Mis' Cullom." "Dave Harum!" expostulated Mrs. Bixbee, but he proceeded without heed of her protest. "Polly an' I," he said, "went down to New York one spring some years ago. Her nerves was some wore out 'long of diff'rences with Sairy about clearin' up the woodshed, an' bread risin's, an' not bein' able to suit herself up to Purse's in the qual'ty of silk velvit she wanted fer a Sunday-go-to-meetin' gown, an' I thought a spell off 'd do her good. Wa'al, the day after we got there I says to her while we was havin' breakfust--it was picked-up el'phant on toast, near 's I c'n remember, wa'n't it, Polly?" "That's as near the truth as most o' the rest on't so fur," said Polly with a sniff.