Flora gives a startled look, and says:  “I don’t see it.”

“Suppose,” he goes on—­“suppose that I go to a magistrate, and say:  ’Judge, I voted for you, and can influence a large foreign vote for you again.  I have lost a nephew who was very fond of apples, and a black alpaca umbrella of great value.  A young Southerner, who has not lived in this State long enough to vote, has been found in possession of an apple singularly like the kind generally eaten by my missing relative, and his sister has come out in a waist made of second-hand alpaca?’—­See the point now?”

“Mr. Bumstead,” exclaims Flora, affrighted by the terrible menace of his manner, “I don’t any more believe that Mr. Pendragon is guilty than I, myself, am; and as for your old umbrella—­”

“Stop, woman!” interrupted the bereaved organist, imperiously.  “Not even your lips shall speak disrespectfully of my lost bone-handled friend.  By a chain of unanswerable argument, I have shown you that I hold the fate of your southern acquaintances in my hands, and shall be particularly sorry if you force me to hang Mr. Pendragon as a rival.”

Flora puts her hands to her temples, to soothe her throbbing head and display a bracelet.

“Oh, what shall I do!  I don’t want anybody to be hung!  It must be so perfectly awful!”

Her touching display of generous feeling does not soften him.  On the contrary, he stands more erect, and smiles rather triumphantly under his straw hat.

“Beloved one,” he murmurs, in a rich voice, “I find that I cannot induce you to make the first advance toward the mutual avowal we are both longing for, and must therefore precipitate our happiness myself.  My poor boy would not have given you perfect satisfaction, and your momentary liking for the male pendragon was but the effect of a temporary despair undoubtedly produced by my seeming coldness.  That coldness had nothing to do with my heart, but resulted partially from my habit of wearing a wet towel on my head.  I now propose to you—­”

“Propose to me?” ejaculates Miss Potts, with heightened color.

“—­That you pick out a worthy man belonging to your own section of the Union,” he continues hastily.  “Here’s my Heart,” he adds, going through the motions of taking something from a pocket and placing it in his outstretched palm, “and here’s my Hand,”—­placing therein an equally imaginary object from another pocket.—­“Try the H. and H. of J. Bumstead.”

His manner is as though he were commending some patent article of unquestionable utility.

“But I can’t bear the sight of you!” she cries, pushing away the brown linen arm coming after her again.

Taking away her fan, he pats her on the head with it, and seems momentarily surprised at the hollow sound.