The sarcasm was so evident that Harry's blood seethed. The Tim Botkins alluded to had been dubbed by Basil Wurmset, the cynic and wit of the village, “apt appreciation's artful aid.” Red-haired, soft eyed, moon-faced, round of belly and lymphatic of temperament, his principal occupation in life was to play fiddle in the Sardis string-band, and in the intervals of professional engagements at dances and picnics, to fill one of the large splint-bottomed chairs in front of the hotel with his pulpy form, and receive the smart or bitter sayings of the loungers there with a laught that began before any one else's, and lasted after the others had gotten through. His laugh alone was as good as that of all the rest of the crowd. It was not a hearty, resonant laugh, like that from the mouth of a strong-lunged, wholesome-natured man, which has the mellow roundness of a solo on a French horn. It was a slovenly, greasy, convictionless laugh, with uncertain tones and ill-defined edges. Its effect was due to its volume, readiness, and long continuance. Swelling up of the puffy form, and reddening ripples of the broad face heralded it, it began with a contagious cackle, it deepened into a flabby guffaw, and after all the others roundabout had finished their cachinnatory tribute it wound up with what was between a roar and the lazy drone of a bagpipe. It now rewarded Nels Hathaway's irony, and the rest of the loungers joined in. Encouraged, Nels continued, as its last echoes died away: “Yes, he's just as spry and pert as anybody. He seems to have recovered entirely from all his wounds; none of 'em have disfiggered him any, and his nerves have got over their terrible strain.” Tim ran promptly through all the notes in his diapason, and the rest joined in on the middle register. “Well, I'm not at all surprised,” said Mr. Oldunker, a bitter States' Rights Democrat, and the oracle of his party. “I told you how it'd be from the first. Harry Glen was one of them Wide-Awakes that marched around on pleasant evenings last Fall with oil-cloth capes and kerosene lamps. I told you that those fellows'd be no where when the war they were trying to bring on came. I'm not at all astonished that he showed himself lily-livered when he found the people that he was willing to rob of their property standing ready to fight for their homes and their slaves.” “Ready to shoot into a crowd of unsuspecting men, you mean,” sneered Basil Wurmset, “and then break their own cursed necks when they saw a little cold steel coming their way.” Tim came in promptly with his risible symphony. “Well, they didn't run away from any cold steel that Harry Glen displayed,” sneered Oldunker. Tim's laugh was allegro and crescendo at the first, and staccato at the close.