I demurred.  Finally we spun a dollar to decide upon which of us lay the brutal duty of turning away the stranger within our gates.  Fortune frowned on me, and I rose reluctantly from my chair.

“Air you the hired man?” said the woman in the buggy, as I looked askance into her face.

“I work here,” I replied, “for my board—­which is not of the best.”

“Ye seem kinder thin.  Say—­air the lords to home?”

“The lords?”

“Yes, the lords.  They tole me back ther,” she jerked her head in the direction of the village, “that two English lords owned a big cattle-ranch right here; an’ I thought, mebbee, that they’d like ter see—­ me.”

A pathetic accent of doubt quavered upon the personal pronoun.

“Ye kin tell ’em,” she continued, “that I’m here.  Yes, sir, I’m a book-agent, an’ my book will interest them—­sure.”

Her eyes, soft blue eyes, bespoke hope; her lips quivered with tell-tale anxiety.  Something inharmonious about the little woman, a queer lack of adjustment between voice and mouth, struck me as singular, but not unpleasing.

“It’s called,” she pleaded, in the tenderest tones, “A Golden Word from Mother.  I sell it bound in cloth, sheep, or moroccy.  It’s perfectly lovely—­in moroccy.”

“One of the—­er—­lords,” said I gravely, “is here.  I’ll call him.  I think he can read.”

This, according to our fraternal code, was rank treachery, yet I felt no traitor.  Ajax obeyed my summons, and, sauntering across the sun-baked yard, lifted his hat to the visitor.  She bowed politely, and blinked, with short-sighted eyes, at my brother’s overalls and tattered canvas shirt.  I have seen Ajax, in Piccadilly, glorious in a frock-coat and varnished boots.  I have seen him, as Gloriana saw him for the first time, in rags that might provoke the scorn of Lazarus.  With the thermometer at a hundred in the shade, custom curtseys to convenience.  Ajax boasted with reason that the loosening of a single safety-pin left him in condition for a plunge into the pool at the foot of the corral.

“I hope you’re well, lord,” said the little woman; “an’ if ye ain’t, why—­what I’ve got here’ll do ye more good than a doctor.  I reckon ye hev a mother, an’ naterally she thinks the world of ye.  Well, sir, I bring ye a golden word from her very lips.  Jest listen to this.  I ain’t much on the elocute, but I’m goin’ ter do my best.”

We listened patiently as she declaimed half a page of wretched prose.  Her voice rose and fell in a sing-song cadence, but certain modulations of tone lent charm to the absurd words.  When she finished her eyes were full of tears.

“That is very nice indeed,” said Ajax softly.  “I should like to buy your book.”

Her hands trembled.

“I sell it in cloth at—­one dollar; in sheep at—­one, six bits; in reel moroccy, with gold toolin’ at—­two an’ a half.”

“We must certainly secure a copy in gold and morocco.”