"
"You are speaking, sir, about a person who matters enormously," I
rebuked him.
"If I hadn't been afraid of getting arrested I'd have shot him long
ago."
"It's not done, sir," I said, quite horrified by his rash words.
"It's liable to be," he insisted. "I bet Ma Pettengill will go in with
me on it any time I give her the word. Say, listen! there's one good
mixer."
"The confirmed Mixer, sir?" For I remembered the term.
"The best ever. Any one can set into her game that's got a stack of
chips." He uttered this with deep feeling, whatever it might exactly
mean.
"I can be pushed just so far," he insisted sullenly. It struck me then
that he should perhaps have been kept longer in one of the European
capitals. I feared his brief contact with those refining influences
had left him less polished than Mrs. Effie seemed to hope. I wondered
uneasily if he might not cause her to miss her guess. Yet I saw he was
in no mood to be reasoned with, and I retired to my bed which the
blackamoor guard had done out. Here I meditated profoundly for some
time before I slept.
Morning found our coach shunted to a siding at a backwoods settlement
on the borders of an inland sea. The scene was wild beyond
description, where quite almost anything might be expected to happen,
though I was a bit reassured by the presence of a number of persons of
both sexes who appeared to make little of the dangers by which we were
surrounded.
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