Timotheus, still in Sunday garb, took his work-a-day suit, now quite dry, and went to meet Mr. Pawkins.  Introducing him to the stable, he soon had that gentleman relieved of his wet toggery, when voices were heard without.  It was the colonel, bringing his sister-in-law to see his horse, as a sort of relief to the strain on his feelings, consequent upon his interview with Wilkinson.  Mr. Pawkins had only got Timotheus’ flannel shirt on, when the stable door opened.  “Shin up that ladder into the loft, Mr. Pawkins,” cried the benevolent Pilgrim, and the spectacle of a pair of disappearing shanks greeted the visitors on their entrance.  Timotheus had escaped into the coach-house, but all the clothes, wet and dry, save the shirt, lay over the sides of an empty stall.  Immediately the colonel perceived the vanishing heels of the Yankee, he interposed his person between them and Mrs. Du Plessis.  “My deah Tehesa,” he said, hastily, “I think we had bettah retiah foh the pehsent, and visit the stables lateh in the day.”  Mrs. Du Plessis, however, once no mean judge of horseflesh, was scanning the good points of her brother-in-law’s purchase, and seemed indisposed to withdraw.  Soon a head and a pair of flannel shirted arms appeared, hanging over the loft trap, and a voice hailed the colonel.

“Say, mister, you ain’t a goin’ to bring no wimmen folks up this here ladder, be you?”

“Cehtainly not, suh!” answered the colonel, with emphasis.

“If it won’t hurt you, I wisht you’d sling up them dry paants and things daown there.”

The colonel looked at the man, and then at the articles, with impatience.  Then he got a pitchfork, on the prongs of which he collected the garments, one by one, and so handed them up to Mr. Pawkins, who was still minus necktie, socks and boots.  Before, however, he was ready for these, the visitors had retired, leaving him to complete his toilet in private.  Hearing steps again, he hurriedly picked up his wet clothes and re-ascended the ladder.  The colonel had evidently asked Sylvanus to take the place of Maguffin about the two horses, for he was the newcomer.  Now, Mr. Pawkins bore no malice, but, when jokes were going, he did not like to be left the chief victim.  He had had some fun out of the boys; now he would have some more.  The Yankee could mew to perfection.  He began, and Sylvanus called the strange cat.  It would not come, so he climbed the ladder after it, and had almost reached the top, when, with vicious cries, the animal flew at him, seized him by the back of the neck, and drew blood that he could feel trickling down his back.  Tugging ineffectually at the beast, he ran out to the kitchen, calling upon everybody to take off that mad cat that was killing him.  The cat was taken off, amid shrieks of laughter, and proved to be Mr. Pawkins’ rolled up wet trousers and vest, the water from which was the blood imagined by Sylvanus.  The owner of the garments entered immediately behind his victim, and from his banter the elder Pilgrim gladly escaped to resume his stable duties, feeling that he had been demeaned in the eyes of the laughing Tryphena.