“Hello, Sim,” said Mr. Pike as he took his seat opposite him.  “You here?  What’s the news in the country?  How’s your health?  How’s crops?”

“Jest mod’rate, Mr. Pike.  Got little business with you after dinner, ef you can spare time.”

“All right.  Got a little matter with Pink here first.  ’Twon’t take long.  See you arfter amejiant, Sim.”

Never had the deputy been more gracious and witty.  He talked and talked, outtalking even Mr. Fluker; he was the only man in town who could do that.  He winked at Marann as he put questions to Sim, some of the words employed in which Sim had never heard before.  Yet Sim held up as well as he could, and after dinner followed Marann with some little dignity into the parlor.  They had not been there more than ten minutes when Mrs. Fluker was heard to walk rapidly along the passage leading from the dining-room, to enter her own chamber for only a moment, then to come out and rush to the parlor door with the gig-whip in her hand.  Such uncommon conduct in a woman like Mrs. Pink Fluker of course needs explanation.

When all the other boarders had left the house, the deputy and Mr. Fluker having repaired to the bar-room, the former said: 

“Now, Pink, for our settlement, as you say your wife think we better have one.  I’d ‘a’ been willin’ to let accounts keep on a-runnin’, knowin’ what a straightforrards sort o’ man you was.  Your count, ef I ain’t mistakened, is jes’ thirty-three dollars, even money.  Is that so, or is it not?”

“That’s it, to a dollar, Matt.  Three times eleben make thirty-three, don’t it?”

“It do, Pink, or eleben times three, jes’ which you please.  Now here’s my count, on which you’ll see, Pink, that not nary cent have I charged for infloonce.  I has infloonced a consider’ble custom to this house, as you know, bo’din’ and transion.  But I done that out o’ my respects of you an’ Missis Fluker, an’ your keepin’ of a fa’r—­I’ll say, as I’ve said freckwent, a very fa’r house.  I let them infloonces go to friendship, ef you’ll take it so.  Will you, Pink Fluker?”

“Cert’nly, Matt, an’ I’m a thousand times obleeged to you, an’—­”

“Say no more, Pink, on that p’int o’ view.  Ef I like a man, I know how to treat him.  Now as to the p’ints o’ absentees, my business as dep’ty sheriff has took me away from this inconsider’ble town freckwent, hain’t it?”

“It have, Matt, er somethin’ else, more’n I were a expectin’, an’—­”

“Jes’ so.  But a public officer, Pink, when jooty call on him to go, he got to go; in fack he got to goth, as the Scripture say, ain’t that so?”

“I s’pose so, Matt, by good rights, a—­a official speakin’.”

Mr. Fluker felt that he was becoming a little confused.

“Jes’ so.  Now, Pink, I were to have credics for my absentees ‘cordin’ to transion an’ single-meal bo’ders an’ sleepers; ain’t that so?”

“I—­I—­somethin’ o’ that sort, Matt,” he answered vaguely.