“What do you mean, Mr. Pawkins?”

“I mean overalls, and it’s all over with you, Rufus.”  Having planted this well-meant thorn in the breast of the younger Hill, and excited the commiseration of his sisters, the lover of innocent amusement turned to Ben, and asked that gentleman, whose attentions to Serlizer were most open and above board, “sence when he got another gal?”

Mr. Toner turned angrily, and asked what Mr. Pawkins was “a givin’ him.”

“I never see Bridget naow but she’s a cryin’ and rubbin’ her eyes most aout with her cuffs,” said the cheerful Pawkins; “she allaowed to me you’d the nighest thing to said the priest was ony waitin’ for the word to splice; and here you air, you biggermus delooder, settin’ along o’ Newcome’s gal as if you’d got a mortgage on her.  Arter that, the sight ain’t to be sawed that’ll make me ashamed o’ my feller-creeters, no sirree, boss, hull team to boot, and a big dog under the waggin!” Mr. Pawkins sniffed vehemently, and Ben and his affianced bride blushed and drew apart.

“Is that so, Ben?” asked Sarah Eliza in a half whisper.

“S’haylp me, Serlizer,” replied the injured Toner in a similar voice, “that there Pawkins is the cussidest, lyinest old puke of a trouble-makin’ Yankee as aiver come to Cannidy.”

“Are you engaged to Biddy Sullivan, Ben?”

“No, I tell you, naiver said a word to Barney’s sister I wouldn’t say to any gal.”

“Then, what did Barney come here lookin’ for you for?”

“So did the tavern keeper and the store keeper, ’cause mother axed ’em, I suppose; you don’t think they want me to marry their wives, do you?”

“Wives an’ darters is different things, Ben.  Ef I’d thought you had been havin’ goins on with Biddy, I’d flog the pair of you.”

“S’haylp me, Serlizer, it ain’t so.  Ef it was, you could whayull me till I was stripy as a chipmunk.”

“Talkin’ abaout whalins,” remarked the mischief-maker, who kept one ear open, “Miss Newcome’s paa is jest a waitin’ to git up and git araound, to give somebody, as ain’t fer off’n this table, the blamedest, kerfoundedest lammin’ as ever he knowed.  He wants his gal home right straight for to nuss him, so’s he kin git araound smart with that rawhide that’s singein’ its ends off in the oven.”

“What’s dad got agin you, Ben?” enquired Miss Newcome.

“Oh nawthin’; it’s only that Pawkins’ double-treed, snaffle-bitted, collar-bladed jaw.”  Mr. Pawkins smiled, but Ben and Serlizer were more uncomfortable than Rufus and his sisters.

The naturalized Canadian turned his attention else where.  “I’m kinder amazed,” he remarked, eyeing first Sylvanus and then Timotheus, “to see you two a settin’ here, as cam as if you never done nothin’ to be sorry for.  I s’pose you know, if you don’t you had orter, that there’s a war’nt aout agin the two Pilgrims for stealin’ aout o’ the Peskiwanchow tavern, or ho-tel, as Davis calls his haouse.  I calclate the constable ’ll be back with that war’nt afore night.  I’d make myself skeerce if I was in your shoes.”