anything, or else he was an all-fired fool, and had parted with his money like one.  Some allow that the reason was that he was awfully sweet on Mrs. Peyton’s adopted daughter, and ez the parents didn’t approve of him, he did this so as to get a holt over them by the property.  But he’s a ruined man, anyway, now; for they say he’s such a darned fool that he’s goin’ to pay for all the improvements that the folks who bought under him put into the land, and that’ll take his last cent.  I thought I’d tell you that, for I suppose you’ve lost a heap in your improvements, and will put in your claim?”

“I reckon I put nearly as much into it as Clar Brant did,” said Jim gloomily, “but I ain’t goin’ to take a cent from him, or go back on him now.”

The rascal could not resist this last mendacious opportunity, although he was perfectly sincere in his renunciation, touched in his sympathy, and there was even a film of moisture in his shifting eyes.

Phoebe was thrilled with the generosity of this noble being, who could be unselfish even in his superior condition.  She added softly:—­

“And they say that the girl did not care for him at all, but was actually going to run off with Pedro, when he stopped her and sent for Mrs. Peyton.”

To her surprise, Jim’s face flushed violently.

“It’s all a dod-blasted lie,” he said, in a thick stage whisper.  “It’s only the hogwash them Greasers and Pike County galoots ladle out to each other around the stove in a county grocery.  But,” recalling himself loftily, and with a tolerant wave of his be-diamonded hand, “wot kin you expect from one of them cow counties?  They ain’t satisfied till they drive every gentleman out of the darned gopher-holes they call their ‘kentry.’”

In her admiration of what she believed to be a loyal outburst for his friend, Phoebe overlooked the implied sneer at her provincial home.  But her father went on with a perfunctory, exasperating, dusty aridity:—­

“That mebbee ez mebbee, Mr. Hooker, but the story down in our precinct goes that she gave Mrs. Peyton the slip,—­chucked up her situation as adopted darter, and went off with a queer sort of a cirkiss woman,—­one of her own kin, and I reckon one of her own kind.”

To this Mr. Hooker offered no further reply than a withering rebuke of the waiter, a genteel abstraction, and a lofty change of subject.  He pressed upon them two tickets for the performance, of which he seemed to have a number neatly clasped in an india-rubber band, and advised them to come early.  They would see him after the performance and sup together.  He must leave them now, as he had to be punctually at the theatre, and if he lingered he should be pestered by interviewers.  He withdrew under a dazzling display of cuff and white handkerchief, and with that inward swing of the arm and slight bowiness of the leg generally recognized in his profession as the lounging exit of high comedy.