Mrs Skaggss Husbands | Page 5

this point exhausted nature languished among some of the debaters, and he turned from the frivolity of conversation to his severer professional duties.
It was also well that Bill's momentary attitude of didactic propriety was not further excited by the subsequent conduct of his protege. For by this time Tom, half supporting the unstable Johnson, who developed a tendency to occasionally dash across the glaring road, but checked himself mid way each time, reached the corral which adjoined the Mansion House. At its farther extremity was a pump and horse-trough. Here, without a word being spoken, but evidently in obedience to some habitual custom, Tom led his companion. With the boy's assistance, Johnson removed his coat and neckcloth, turned back the collar of his shirt, and gravely placed his head beneath the pump-spout. With equal gravity and deliberation, Tom took his place at the handle. For a few moments only the splashing of water and regular strokes of the pump broke the solemnly ludicrous silence. Then there was a pause in which Johnson put his hands to his dripping head, felt of it critically as if it belonged to somebody else, and raised his eyes to his companion. "That ought to fetch IT," said Tom, in answer to the look. "Ef it don't," replied Johnson, doggedly, with an air of relieving himself of all further responsibility in the matter, "it's got to, thet's all!"
If "it" referred to some change in the physiognomy of Johnson, "it" had probably been "fetched" by the process just indicated. The head that went under the pump was large, and clothed with bushy, uncertain-colored hair; the face was flushed, puffy, and expressionless, the eyes injected and full. The head that came out from under the pump was of smaller size and different shape, the hair straight, dark, and sleek, the face pale and hollow-cheeked, the eyes bright and restless. In the haggard, nervous ascetic that rose from the horse-trough there was very little trace of the Bacchus that had bowed there a moment before. Familiar as Tom must have been with the spectacle, he could not help looking inquiringly at the trough, as if expecting to see some traces of the previous Johnson in its shallow depths.
A narrow strip of willow, alder, and buckeye--a mere dusty, ravelled fringe of the green mantle that swept the high shoulders of Table Mountain--lapped the edge of the corral. The silent pair were quick to avail themselves of even its scant shelter from the overpowering sun. They had not proceeded far, before Johnson, who was walking quite rapidly in advance, suddenly brought himself up, and turned to his companion with an interrogative "Eh?"
"I didn't speak," said Tommy, quietly.
"Who said you spoke?" said Johnson, with a quick look of cunning. "In course you didn't speak, and I didn't speak, neither. Nobody spoke. Wot makes you think you spoke?" he continued, peering curiously into Tommy's eyes.
The smile which habitually shone there quickly vanished as the boy stepped quietly to his companion's side, and took his arm without a word.
"In course you didn't speak, Tommy," said Johnson, deprecatingly. "You ain't a boy to go for to play an ole soaker like me. That's wot I like you for. Thet's wot I seed in you from the first. I sez, 'Thet 'ere boy ain't goin' to play you, Johnson! You can go your whole pile on him, when you can't trust even a bar-keep.' Thet's wot I said. Eh?"
This time Tommy prudently took no notice of the interrogation, and Johnson went on: "Ef I was to ask you another question, you wouldn't go to play me neither,--would you, Tommy?"
"No," said the boy.
"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, without heeding the reply, but with a growing anxiety of eye and a nervous twitching of his lips,--"ef I was to ask you, fur instance, ef that was a jackass rabbit thet jest passed,--eh?--you'd say it was or was not, ez the case may be. You wouldn't play the ole man on thet?"
"No," said Tommy, quietly, "it WAS a jackass rabbit."
"Ef I was to ask you," continued Johnson, "ef it wore, say, fur instance, a green hat with yaller ribbons, you wouldn't play me, and say it did, onless,"--he added, with intensified cunning,-- "onless it DID?"
"No," said Tommy, "of course I wouldn't; but then, you see, IT DID."
"It did?"
"It did!" repeated Tommy, stoutly; "a green hat with yellow ribbons--and--and--a red rosette."
"I didn't get to see the ros-ette," said Johnson, with slow and conscientious deliberation, yet with an evident sense of relief; "but that ain't sayin' it warn't there, you know. Eh?"
Tommy glanced quietly at his companion. There were great beads of perspiration on his ashen-gray forehead and on the ends of his lank hair; the hand which twitched spasmodically in his was cold and clammy, the