" He paused,
and passed the flap of his hat across his eyes. "The pie, you'll say, is
agin it," he continued in the same tone of voice,--"the whiskey is agin
it--a few cuss words that dropped from him, accidental like, may have
been agin it. All the same they mout have been only the little signs and
tokens that it was him."
But Mrs. Baxter's ready laugh somewhat rudely dispelled the infection
of Patterson's gloom. "I reckon the only spirit was that which you and
Spencer consumed," she said, cheerfully. "I don't wonder you're a little
mixed. Like as not you've misunderstood his plans." Patterson shook
his head. "He'll turn up yet, alive and kicking! Like as not, then,
Poindexter knows where he is all the time."
"Impossible! He would have told me," said Mrs. Tucker, quickly.
Mrs. Baxter looked at Patterson without speaking. Patterson replied by a
long lugubrious whistle.
"I don't understand you," said Mrs. Tucker, drawing back with cold
dignity.
"You don't?" returned Mrs. Baxter. "Bless your innocent heart! Why was
he so keen to hunt me up at first, shadowing my friends and all that,
and why has he dropped it now he knows I'm here, if he didn't know where
Spencer was?"
"I can explain that," interrupted Mrs.
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