Thus adjured, Dick Bullen lowered Johnny to the ground with a smothered laugh, while the men, entering quietly, ranged themselves around a long table of rough boards which occupied the centre of the room.  Johnny then gravely proceeded to a cupboard and brought out several articles which he deposited on the table.  “Thar’s whiskey.  And crackers.  And red herons.  And cheese.”  He took a bite of the latter on his way to the table.  “And sugar.”  He scooped up a mouthful en route with a small and very dirty hand.  “And terbacker.  Thar’s dried appils too on the shelf, but I don’t admire ’em.  Appils is swellin’.  Thar,” he concluded, “now wade in, and don’t be afeard.  I don’t mind the old woman.  She don’t b’long to me.  S’long.”

He had stepped to the threshold of a small room, scarcely larger than a closet, partitioned off from the main apartment, and holding in its dim recess a small bed.  He stood there a moment looking at the company, his bare feet peeping from the blanket, and nodded.

“Hello, Johnny!  You ain’t goin’ to turn in agin, are ye?” said Dick.

“Yes, I are,” responded Johnny, decidedly.

“Why, wot’s up, old fellow?”

“I’m sick.”

“How sick!”

“I’ve got a fevier.  And childblains.  And roomatiz,” returned Johnny, and vanished within.  After a moment’s pause, he added in the dark, apparently from under the bedclothes,—­“And biles!”

There was an embarrassing silence.  The men looked at each other, and at the fire.  Even with the appetizing banquet before them, it seemed as if they might again fall into the despondency of Thompson’s grocery, when the voice of the Old Man, incautiously lifted, came deprecatingly from the kitchen.

“Certainly!  Thet’s so.  In course they is.  A gang o’ lazy drunken loafers, and that ar Dick Bullen’s the ornariest of all.  Didn’t hev no more sabe than to come round yar with sickness in the house and no provision.  Thet’s what I said:  ‘Bullen,’ sez I, ’it’s crazy drunk you are, or a fool,’ sez I, ‘to think o’ such a thing.’  ‘Staples,’ I sez, ’be you a man, Staples, and ’spect to raise h-ll under my roof and invalids lyin’ round?’ But they would come,—­they would.  Thet’s wot you must ‘spect o’ such trash as lays round the Bar.”

A burst of laughter from the men followed this unfortunate exposure.  Whether it was overheard in the kitchen, or whether the Old Man’s irate companion had just then exhausted all other modes of expressing her contemptuous indignation, I cannot say, but a back door was suddenly slammed with great violence.  A moment later and the Old Man reappeared, haply unconscious of the cause of the late hilarious outburst, and smiled blandly.

“The old woman thought she’d jest run over to Mrs. McFadden’s for a sociable call,” he explained, with jaunty indifference, as he took a seat at the board.