“‘What sort of a feller was he,’ says Dave, ’when he was somebody?  Putty good feller? good citizen? good neighber? lib’ral? kind to his fam’ly? ev’rybody like him? gen’ally pop’lar, an’ all that?’

“‘Wa’al,’ says Smith, wigglin’ in his chair an’ pullin’ out his whiskers three four hairs to a time, ‘I guess he come some short of all that.’

“‘E’umph!’ says Dave, ‘I guess he did!  Now, honest,’ he says, ‘is the’ man, woman, or child in Whitcom that knows ’Lish Harum that’s got a good word fer him? or ever knowed of his doin’ or sayin’ anythin’ that hadn’t got a mean side to it some way?  Didn’t he drive his wife off, out an’ out? an’ didn’t his two boys hev to quit him soon ’s they could travel? An’,’ says Dave, ’if any one was to ask you to figure out a pattern of the meanist human skunk you was capable of thinkin’ of, wouldn’t it—­honest, now!’ Dave says, ’honest, now—­wouldn’t it be ’s near like ’Lish Harum as one buckshot ‘s like another?’”

“My!” exclaimed Mrs. Cullom.  “What did Mr. Smith say to that?”

“Wa’al,” replied Mrs. Bixbee, “he didn’t say nuthin’ at fust, not in so many words.  He sot fer a minute clawin’ away at his whiskers—­an’ he’d got both hands into ’em by that time—­an’ then he made a move as if he gin the hull thing up an’ was goin’.  Dave set lookin’ at him, an’ then he says, ‘You ain’t goin’, air ye?’

“‘Wa’al,’ says Smith, ‘feelin’ ’s you do, I guess my arrant here ain’t goin’ t’ amount to nothin’, an’ I may ‘s well.’

“‘No, you set still a minute,’ says Dave.  ’If you’ll answer my question honest an’ square, I’ve got sunthin’ more to say to ye.  Come, now,’ he says.

“‘Wa’al,’ says Smith, with a kind of give-it-up sort of a grin, ’I guess you sized him up about right.  I didn’t come to see you on ’Lish Harum’s account.  I come fer the town of Whitcom.’  An’ then he spunked up some an’ says, ‘I don’t give a darn,’ he says, ’what comes of ‘Lish, an’ I don’t know nobody as does, fur’s he’s person’ly concerned; but he’s got to be a town charge less ’n you take ‘m off our hands.’

“Dave turned to me an’ says, jest as if he meant it, ’How ’d you like to have him here, Polly?’

“‘Dave Harum!’ I says, ‘what be you thinkin’ of, seein’ what he is, an’ alwus was, an’ how he alwus treated you?  Lord sakes!’ I says, ’you ain’t thinkin’ of it!’

“‘Not much,’ he says, with an ugly kind of a smile, such as I never see in his face before, ’not much!  Not under this roof, or any roof of mine, if it wa’n’t more’n my cow stable—­an’,’ he says, turnin’ to Smith, ’this is what I want to say to you:  You’ve done all right.  I hain’t no fault to find with you.  But I want you to go back an’ say to ‘Lish Harum that you’ve seen me, an’ that I told you that not one cent of my money nor one mossel o’ my food would ever go to keep him alive one minute of time; that if I had an empty hogpen I wouldn’t let him sleep in’t overnight, much less to bunk in with a decent hog.  You tell him that I said the poorhouse was his proper dwellin’, barrin’ the jail, an’ that it ’d have to be a dum’d sight poorer house ’n I ever heard of not to be a thousan’ times too good fer him.’”