Peverell left when he found he could get no further in his investigation, and then for a time there was a lively business done at both bars of the saloon. The negroes had come into the front room to hear what was said, and they could not leave till each of them had imbibed all the cheap whiskey he could get into one of Captain Boomsby's thick-bottomed tumblers. Nick was just as busy at the front bar. I could not help looking at him as he dealt out the dangerous fluids--doubly dangerous after passing through Captain Boomsby's hands. I doubted whether he had any ambition to become anything better than a bartender. He was about my age, but not half so robust, for, being an only son, his father and mother humored him, and never compelled him to do anything like hard work, as they had me. Nick was dressed in rather cheap, but flashy, clothes, and wore an enormous glass diamond in his shirt front. At the present time he seemed to be doing his dirty work in a very mechanical manner, as though he were thinking of something else. He had to ask every customer twice over what he wanted, and even then gave him the wrong bottle. But the rush of business was soon over. Captain Boomsby came out of the negro bar, and Nick joined him in the rear of the front saloon. The father looked at the son, and the son looked at the father, and then both of them looked at me, as though they did not care to say anything in my presence. "I suppose I shall have to go to court, father," said Nick, "and I guess I had better go up stairs and slick up a little." "You look well enough as you be," replied the elder Boomsby. "If I am going into the court, I want my best clothes on. Besides, father, you said I might go out this afternoon," replied Nick, who evidently had other views in his head than the court. "Mother had just as lief tend bar this afternoon as not." "I s'pose she had, but I don't want her in the bar when I can help it," added the captain, whose marital relations had become decidedly unpleasant, as I had learned from observation. "Well, Captain Boomsby, I must say good-bye to you again," I interposed, not caring to wait for the father and son to settle the question between them. I offered my hand and he took it; but I don't think he was inclined to weep at my departure. I thought that Nick looked at me with more than usual interest, and when I took him by the hand to say good-bye to him, he pressed my hand warmly. Before, when I had met him, he was hardly disposed to speak to me at all. He and his mother kept the old sores open. "I have never been on board of your steamer yet, Captain Alick," said he, with a sort of ghastly grin, which I could not understand. "I wanted to get out this afternoon to make a visit to her."