As the overseer lingered in hope of some modification of the sentence he had brought upon himself, Westover impatiently turned upon him, saying: "I think I have nothing more to say to you, Mr. Wilkinson, and I wish to talk with Mr. Towns. You may go now." As the man walked down the road that led to the outer gates, he muttered: "I'll git back at him for that. He's a sneak-in' abolitionist. I'll be over at Fighting Creek to-morrow, seein's he's made it a holiday here." "Now I want to talk with you, Jack," said Westover when the man was well out of earshot. "So I understood you to say to Mr. Wilkinson; and you may go on and talk to me till the cows come home, if it amuses you to do so, but if you expect me to talk back in any rational way, you've simply got to wait till after breakfast. When I've had two cups of coffee, the best part of a roe herring, three or four slices of cold ham, a wedge or two of hot light bread, some beaten biscuit, and one of your belated cantaloupes, I shall begin to appreciate the fact that I have a brain. Till then I decline to consider myself a rational being. Go on and talk, if you want to." "I will," answered Westover, passing into the house. To one of the dining-room servants he said: "Serve a pot of coffee to Mr. Towns immediately, do you hear? Is it ready?" Half a minute later Cilla appeared in the porch bearing a tray with coffee and its accessories daintily arranged upon a napkin. The servants at Wanalah had not yet lost their memory of the training they had received in youth. "There," said Westover, "saturate your soul and stimulate your system with coffee. And by the way, there's a frost-bitten tomato sliced up to deceive your eyes and your appetite. How long before breakfast, Cilla?" "It's a-bein' brung in now," answered the serving girl, "all but the hot buckwheat cakes, an' them'll come a little later." It was the custom of the Virginians to talk freely at table, paying no heed whatever to the presence of their servitors. Accordingly, as soon as Jack Towns began to discover his brains again, under the influence of a breakfast that might have made a chatterer of the Sphinx itself, the two talked of plans. "My first endeavor," said Westover, "will be to compel Colonel Conway to declare himself. To that end, as soon as breakfast is done, I shall send him a letter that will require a response of some sort. You see, Jack, his attitude is far more hurtful to me than the most aggressive antagonism on his part could be. Everybody knows that the Westovers and the Conways have been the most intimate friends possible throughout generations past. If he and I had had a quarrel, everybody would understand. But we have had no quarrel, and so nobody understands and everybody wonders. If he believes I was guilty down there in Richmond--" "He can't think that, unless he's an idiot of extraordinary capacity for the lunatic misinterpretation of facts," interrupted Towns.