“‘Comfortable, the devil!’ said I. I’m usually polite to Sally, but I felt like that wasn’t no time an’ place to talk about little matters. ‘Comfortable, nothin’,’ said I; ‘Sally, ef you don’t take that “dog-hair” out o’ this house an’ hide it, I’ll be as drunk as a b’iled owl in ten minutes.’ “’“Dog-hair?”’ said she, an’ then the little woman remembered an’ got up. I heard the bottles tinkle like sorrowful good-bye bells callin’ wanderin’ friends back to the fold as she tuck ’em up an’ left. Captain, I felt jest like”—Pole laughed good-naturedly—“I felt like thar was a plot agin the best friends I ever had. I actually felt sorry fer them bottles, an’ I got up an’ stood at the window an’ watched Sally as she tuck ’em away out in the lonely moonlight to the barn. I seed ’er climb over the fence o’ the cow-lot an’ go in the side whar I kept my hay an’ fodder an’ roughness fer my cattle. Then I laid down in bed agin.” “That was certainly a courageous thing to do,” said the planter, “and you deserve credit for putting your foot down so firmly on what you felt was so injurious, even, even—” the Captain came back again to reality—“even if you did not remain firm very long afterward.” “Well, I’ll tell you one thing,” the ex-moonshiner laughed again, and his eyes twinkled in subtle enjoyment, “it tuck Sally longer, it seemed to me, to git to sleep after she got back than it ever had in all her life. Of all times on earth she wanted to talk. But I shet ’er off. I made like I was breathin’ good an’ deep an’ then she set in too. What did I do? Captain Duncan, I spent the best half o’ that night out in the barn lookin’ fer hens’ nests. I found two an’ had to be put to bed at sun-up.” The planter laughed heartily. “There is one good thing about the situation, Baker,” he said, “and that is, your making a joke of it. I believe you will get the under-hold on the thing some day and throw it over. Coming back to your friend Floyd; it’s a fact that he gave up whisky, but if reports are true, he has another fault that is almost as bad.” “Oh, you mean all that talk about Jeff Wade’s sister,” answered the mountaineer. “Yes, Baker, a reputation of that sort is not a desirable thing in any community. I know that many brainy and successful men hold that kind of thing lightly, but it will down anybody who tampers with it.”