But he got her tongue wagging, and to such an extent that he stopped and smoked many pipes, and whenever she lagged, urged her on again.

He grunted and chuckled and swore in undertones while he listened, punctuating her narrative regularly with _hells_! which adequately expressed the many shades of interest he felt.
In the midst of it, the woman fished an ancient leather-bound volume, all scarred and marred, from the bottom of a dilapidated chest, and thereafter it lay on the table between them.

Though it remained unopened, she constantly referred to it by look and gesture, and each time she did so a greedy light blazed in Bishop's eyes.

At the end, when she could say no more and had repeated herself from two to half a dozen times, he pulled out his sack.

Mrs.Whipple set up the gold scales and placed the weights, which he counterbalanced with a hundred dollars' worth of dust.