man Rhett’s fo’ the future; that I was qualifying fo’ to be his son-in-law, and seekin’ his indorsement as a provider.  I took ’em on one at a time as they happened along, and lambasted ’em all over the place.  As fo’ the Nashville widowers,” said Cavendish with a chuckle, and a nod to Polly, “I pretty nigh drownded one of ’em in the Elk.  We met in mid-stream and fit it out there; and the other quit the county.  That was fo’teen years ago; but, mind you, I’d do it all over again to-morrow.”

“But, Dick, you ain’t telling Mr. Yancy nothin’ about yo’ title,” expostulated Polly.

“I’d admire to hear mo’ about that,” said Yancy.

“I’m gettin’ round to that.  It was my great grandfather come over here from England.  His name was Richard Keppel Cavendish, same as mine is.  He lived back yonder on the Carolina coast and went to raisin’ tobacco.  I’ve heard my grandfather tell how he’d heard folks say his father was always hintin’ in his licker that he was a heap better than he seemed, and if people only knowed the truth about him they’d respect him mo’, and mebby treat him better.  Well, sir, he married and riz a family; there was my grandfather and a passel of girls—­and that crop of children was the only decent crop he ever riz.  I’ve heard my grandfather tell how, when he got old enough to notice such things, he seen that his father had the look of a man with something mysterious hangin’ over him, but he couldn’t make it out what it was, though he gave it a heap of study.  He seen, too, that let him get a taste of licker and he’d begin to throw out them hints, how if folks only knowed the truth they’d be just naturally fallin’ over themselves fo’ to do him a favor, instead of pickin’ on him and tryin’ to down him.

“My grandfather said he never knowed a man, either, with the same aversion agin labor as his father had.  Folks put it down to laziness, but they misjudged him, as come out later, yet he never let on.  He just went around sorrowful-like, and when there was a piece of work fo’ him to do he’d spend a heap of time studyin’ it, or mebby he’d just set and look at it until he was ready fo’ to give it up.  Appeared like he couldn’t bring himself down to toil.

“Then one day he got his hands on a paper that had come acrost in a ship from England.  He was readin’ it, settin’ in the shade; my grandfather said he always noticed he was partial to the shade, and his wife was pesterin’ of him fo’ to go and plow out his truck-patch, when, all at once, he lit on something in the paper, and he started up and let out a yell like he’d been shot.  ’By gum, I’m the Earl of Lambeth!’ he says, and took out to the nearest tavern and got b’ilin’ full.  Afterward he showed ’em the paper and they seen with their own eyes where Richard Keppel Cavendish, Earl of Lambeth, had died in London.  My great grandfather told ’em that was his uncle; that when he left home there was several cousins—­which was printed in the paper, too —­but they’d up and died, so the title naturally come to him.