Every knife and fork in the room suspended action in anxiety to know how the “yearling” would take it.  Would their chivalry, which strained at a gnat, be compelled to swallow such a conspicuous camel as the success of Simpson?  With the attitude he had taken towards the girl, there had crept into the company an imperceptible change; deep-buried impulses sprang to the surface.  If a scoundrel like Simpson was going to try his luck, why shouldn’t they?  They didn’t see a pretty girl once in a blue moon.  With the advent of the green-eyed monster at the board, each man unconsciously became the rival of his neighbor.

But Miss Carmichael merely continued her breakfast, and if she heard the amiable deductions of Simpson regarding her, she gave no sign.  But a rebuff to him was in the nature of an appetizer, a fillip to press the acquaintance.  He encroached a bit farther on the narrow limits of the table and continued, “Nice weather we’re having.”

Miss Carmichael gave her undivided attention to her coffee.  The spurs and sombreros, that had not relaxed a muscle in their strained observation of the little drama, breathed reflectively.  Perhaps it was just as well that they had not emulated Simpson in his brazen charge; the “yearling” was not to be surprised into talking, that was certain.

“He shore is showing hisself to be a friendly native,” commented the man who had sacrificed milk-teeth investigating the indestructible doll.

“Seems to me that the system he’s playing lacks a heap of science.  My money’s on the yearling.”  And the man who had “discarded the steak and drawn to the biscuits” leaned a little forward that he might better watch developments.

Simpson by this time fully realized his error, but failure before all these bantering youngsters was a contingency not to be accepted lightly.  As he phrased it to himself, it was worth “another throw.”  “Seems kind o’ lonesome not having any one to talk to while you’re eatin’, don’t it?”

Miss Carmichael’s air of perfect composure seemed a trifle out of tune with her surroundings; the nice elevation of eyebrow, the slightly questioning curl of the lip as she, for the first time apparently, became aware of the man opposite, seemed to demand a prim drawing-room rather than the atmosphere of the slouching eating-house.

“Well, really, I’ve hardly had a chance of finding out.”  And her eyes were again on her coffee-cup.  And there was joy among the men at table that they had not rushed in after the manner of those who have a greater courage than the angels.

“No offence meant,” deprecated Simpson, with an uneasy glance towards the other end of the table, where the men sat with necks craned forward in an attitude uncomfortably suggestive of hounds straining at the leash.  Simpson felt rather than saw that something was afoot among the sombreros.  There was a crowding together in whispered colloquy, and in a flash some half-dozen of them were on their feet as a man.  Descending upon Simpson, they lifted him, chair and all, to the other end of the table, as far removed as possible from Miss Carmichael.