“Sufferin’ Pete!” he murmured, then, inhaling a long, deep breath, turned to grasp Joe’s mighty, outstretched hand.  Then, drawing their chairs together, they sat down, and Ravenslee, by an adroit question or two, soon had them talking, the Spider quick and eager and chewing voraciously, Joe soft-voiced and deliberate but speaking with that calm air of finality that comes only of long and varied experience.  So, while Ravenslee smoked and listened, they spoke of past battles, of fights and fighters old and new; they discoursed learnedly on ringcraft, they discussed the merits of the crouch as opposed to the stiff leg and straight left; they stood up to show tricks of foot and hand—­cunning shifts and feints; they ducked and side-stepped and smote the empty air with whirling fists to the imminent peril of the owl that was a parrot, which moth-eaten relic seemed to watch them with his solitary glass eye.  And ever the Spider’s respect and admiration for the mild-eyed, quiet-spoken champion waxed and grew.

“Bo!” said he, dexterously catching the toppling bird, glass case and all, for the second time, and addressing Ravenslee with it clasped to his heart, “bo,” he repeated, his eyes shining, “I guess Joe Madden, the greatest battler of ’em all, is—­Joe Madden still.  I’ve always wanted t’ meet with him, an’ say—­I wouldn’t ha’ missed him for a farm.”

“Is that so!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes, entering the room at this moment with the tea-cloth, “well, now—­you jest put ’im down—­you jest put that bird back again, Spider Connolly!”

“Yes, ma’am,” quoth the Spider, all abashed humility.

“What you doin’ with it, anyway?” she demanded, elbows jutted ominously; “it’s lost a eye, an’ a cat got it once an’ sp’iled it some, but I treasure it fer reasons o’ sentiment, an’ if you think you c’n steal it—­”

“Not ’im, ma’am, not ’im!” piped the Old Un from the doorway, “it ain’t the pore lad’s fault.  It’s Joe, blame it all on to Joe—­Joe’s got a bad ’eart, ma’am, a black, base-’earted perisher is Joe—­so no jam for Joe, ma’am, an’ only one slice o’ cake.”

Here Ravenslee hastened to explain, whereupon Mrs. Trapes’s grimness abated, and her bristling elbows subsided; and now, perceiving how the abashed Spider, meeting her eye, flushed, plucked at his cuffs, and shuffled his feet, she reached out to pat his broad and drooping shoulder.

“Mister Connolly,” said she, “for harsh words spoke in haste I craves now your pardon, an’ I craves it—­humble.  Am I forgive?”

The Spider, flushing redder than ever, rose to his feet, seized her hand, shook it, and muttered:  “Sure!”

When the table was laid, the Old Un proposed, and was duly seconded, thirded, and fourthed, that Mrs. Trapes be elected into the chair to pour out the tea, which she proceeded to do forthwith, while the Old Un, seated at her right hand, kept a wary eye roving between jam dish and angel cake.  And by reason of the unwonted graciousness of Mrs. Trapes, of Ravenslee’s tact and easy assurance, and the Old Un’s impish hilarity, all diffidence and restraint were banished, and good fellowship reigned supreme, though the Spider was interrupted in the midst of a story by the Old Un suddenly exclaiming: