Matthew was devouring huge slabs of the roasted bones and half a dozen batches of the corn bread in a manner that was ravenously unconventional.  I remembered that the last time I had seen him at repast, just about forty-eight hours past, he had speared a croquette of chicken with disdain, and I decided not to apologize for the meal even in the most subtle way.  Also the spectacle of father polishing off the small bones, when I remembered the efforts of devoted Henri to tempt his appetite with sophisticated food, filled me with a queer primitive feeling that made it possible for me to fall upon my series of the ribs with an ardor which I had thought I was incapable of.

“I call that some food,” sighed Matthew, as he regarded the pile of bones in his plate with the greatest satisfaction in his appeased eyes.  I felt Rufus melt behind me as he passed the muffins again.

“The native food of the Harpeth Valley nourishes specially fine men—­and very beautiful women,” answered Uncle Cradd, with a glance of pride, first at me and then at father in his spare, but muscular, uprightness and finally at Matthew, with his one hundred and eighty pounds of brawn packed on his six-foot skeleton in the most beautiful lines and curves of strength and distinction.

“Oh, that reminds me, Mr. Craddock, and you, too, Father of Ann,” said Matthew, as he reached into his pocket and hurriedly drew out a huge letter.  “I have a proposition that came to the firm this morning to talk over with you two gentlemen.  Ann thought I came out to help her settle the Bird family comfortably, and for a while I forgot and thought so too, but now I’ll have to ask you two gentlemen to talk business, though I must confess the matter puzzles me not a little.”

“The art of dining and the craft of business should never be commingled; let us repair to the library,” said Uncle Cradd, thus placing the spare ribs in an artistic atmosphere and at the same time aiming an arrow of criticism, though unconscious, at the custom of the world out over Paradise Ridge of feeding business conditions down the throat of an adversary with his food and drink, specially drink.

“I don’t know why, but I’m scared to death now that I’m up against it,” Matthew confided to me as he first took a legal-looking piece of paper from his pocket and then hastily put it back as he and I followed the parental twins down the hall and into the library.

“Will you rescue me, Ann?” he whispered as he ceremoniously seated me in my low chair and took a straight one beside father as Uncle Cradd stood tall, huge and towering on the old home-woven rug before the small fire in the huge rock chimney.