"Wot every cub that sets yer under his cantin' teachin', and sees 'em together, knows.

It's wot you'd hev knowed ef he and Roop Filgee hadn't played ye fer a softy all the time.

And while you've bin hangin' round yer fer a flicker of Cressy's gownd as she prances out o' school, he's bin lyin' low and laffin' at ye, and while he's turned Roop over to keep you here, pretendin' to give ye lessons, he's bin gallivantin' round with her and huggin' and kissin' her in barns and in the brush--and now YOU want to quar'll with me." He stopped, panting for breath, and stared malignantly in the gray face of his hearer.

But Uncle Ben only lifted his heavy hand mildly with an awkward gesture of warning, stepped softly in his old cautious hesitating manner to the open door, closed it, and returned gently:-- "I reckon ye got in through the winder, didn't ye, Seth ?" he said, with a labored affectation of unemotional ease, "a kind o' one leg over, and one, two, and then you're in, eh ?" "Never you mind HOW I got in, Ben Dabney," returned Seth, his hostility and insolence increasing with his opponent's evident weakness, "ez long ez I got yer and got, by G-d! what I kem here fer! For whiles all this was goin' on, and whiles the old fool man and old fool woman was swallowin' what they did see and blinkin' at what they didn't, and huggin' themselves that they'd got high-toned kempany fer their darter, that high-toned kempany was playin' THEM too, by G-d! Yes, Sir! that high-toned, cantin' school-teacher was keepin' a married woman in 'Frisco, all the while he was here honey-foglin' with Cressy, and I've got the papers yer to prove it." He tapped his breast-pocket with a coarse laugh and thrust his face forward into the gray shadow of his adversary's.
"An' you sorter spotted their bein' in this yer desk and bursted it ?" said Uncle Ben, gravely examining the broken lock in the darkness as if it were the most important feature of the incident.
Seth nodded.

"You bet your life.