“I should like to know where the old rascal is,” says Mrs. Snow, going back to the suggestion that Mr. Belcher was supplying his family with money.

“Well, I can tell ye,” replies Jim.  “I’ve been a keepin’ it in for this very meetin’.”

“Oh Jim!” exclaim half a dozen voices, which means:  “we are dying to hear all about it.”

“Well,” says Jim, “there was a feller as come to my hotel a month ago, and says he:  ‘Jim, did ye ever know what had become of old Belcher?’ ‘No,’ says I, ‘I only knowed he cut a big stick, an’ slid.’  ‘Well,’ says he, ’I seen ’im a month ago, with whiskers enough on ’is ugly face to set up a barberry-bush.’  Says I, ’Where did ye seen ‘im?’ ’Where do ye guess’, says he?’ ‘Swoppin’ a blind hoss’, says I, ’fur a decent one, an’ gettin’ boot.’  ‘No,’ says he, ‘guess agin.’  ‘Preachin’ at a camp-meetin’,’ says I, ‘an’ passin’ round a hat arter it.’  ‘No,’ says he, ’I seen ‘im jest where he belonged.  He was tendin’ a little bar, on a S’n’ Lor’nce steamboat.  He was settin’ on a big stool in the middle of ’is bottles, where he could reach ’em all without droppin’ from his roost, an’ when his customers was out he was a peekin’ into a little lookin’-glass, as stood aside of ‘im, an’ a combin’ out his baird.’  ‘That settles it,’ says I, ’you’ve seen ‘im, an no mistake.’  ‘Then,’ says he, ’I called ’im ‘General,’ an’ he looked kind a skeered, an’ says ’e to me, ‘Mum’s the word!  Crooked Valley an’ Air Line is played out, an’ I’m workin’ up a corner in Salt River,’—­laughin’, an’ offerin’ to treat.’

“I wonder how he came in such a place as that,” says Mrs. Snow.

“That’s the funniest part on’t,” responds Jim.  “He found an old friend on the boat, as was much of a gentleman,—­an old friend as was dressed within an inch of his life, an’ sold the tickets.”

“Phipps!” “Phipps!” shout half a dozen voices, and a boisterous laugh goes around the group.

“Ye’ve guessed right the fust time,” Jim continues, “an’ the gentlemanlest clerk, an’ the poplarest man as ever writ names in a book, an’ made change on a counter, with no end o’ rings an’ hankercher-pins, an’ presents of silver mugs, an’ rampin’ resolootions of admirin’ passingers.  An’ there the two fellers be, a sailin’ up an’ down the S’n.’  Lor’nce, as happy as two clams in high water, workin’ up corners in their wages, an’ playin’ into one another’s hands like a pair of pickpockets; and what do ye think old Belcher said about Phipps?”

“What did he say?” comes from every side.

“Well, I can’t tell percisely,” responds Jim.  “Fust he said it was proverdential, as Phipps run away when he did; an’ then he put in somethin’ that sounded as if it come from a book,—­somethin’ about tunin’ the wind to the sheared ram.”

Jim is very doubtful about his quotation, and actually blushes scarlet under the fire of laughter that greets him from every quarter.

“I’m glad if it ’muses ye,” says Jim, “but it wasn’t anything better nor that, considerin’ the man as took it to himself.”