How we come to be such everlastin' fools I don't see! What did we let him have the stuff for?
Why didn't we make him pay?
I--" "Now see here, Obed Gott," broke in Weeks, the butcher, "you know why just as well as we do.

Why, blast it!" he added earnestly, "if he was to come into my shop to-morrow and tip that old high hat of his, and smile and say 'twas a fine mornin and 'How's the good lady to-day ?' and all that, he'd get ha'f the meat there was in the place, and I wouldn't say 'Boo'! I jest couldn't, that's all." This frank statement was received with approving nods and a chorus of muttered "That's so's." "It looks to me this way," declared Higgins.

"If the Major's all right, he's a mighty good customer for all of us.

If he ain't all right, we've got to find it out, but we're in too deep to run resks of gettin' him mad 'fore we know for sure.

Let's think it over for a week.