t. It's
something arising out of it."

"Ah," said the Colonel, affably, "a vendetta, perhaps. Some friend or
relation of his taken up the quarrel?"

The stranger looked abstractedly at Starbottle. "You think a relation
might; or would feel in that sort of way?"

"Why, blank it all, sir," said the Colonel, "nothing is more common.
Why, in '52 one of my oldest friends, Doctor Byrne, of St. Jo, the
seventh in a line from old General Byrne, of St. Louis, was killed,
sir, by Pinkey Riggs, seventh in a line from Senator Riggs, of Kentucky.
Original cause, sir, something about a d----d roasting ear, or a blank
persimmon in 1832; forty-seven men wiped out in twenty years. Fact,
sir."

"It ain't that," said the stranger, moving hesitatingly in his chair.
"If it was anything of that sort I wouldn't mind,--it might bring
matters to a wind-up, and I shouldn't have to come here and have this
cursed talk with you."

It was so evident that this frank and unaffected expression of some
obscure disgust with his own present position had no other implication,
that the Colonel did not except to it. Yet the man did not go on. He
stopped and seemed lost in sombre contemplation of his hat.

The Colonel leaned back in his chair, fanned himself elegantly, wiped
his forehead with a large pongee handkerchief, and looking at his
companion, whose shadowed abstraction seemed to render him impervious to
the heat, said:--

"My dear Mr. Corbin, I perfectly understand you. Blank it all, sir,
the temperature in this infernal hole is quite enough to render any
confidential conversation between gentlemen upon delicate matters
utterly impossible. It's almost as near Hades, sir, as they make
it,--as I trust you and I, Mr. Corbin, will ever experience. I propose,"
continued the Colonel, with airy geniality, "some light change and
refreshment. The bar-keeper of the Magnolia is--er--I may say, sir,
facile princeps in the concoction of mint juleps, and there is a back
room where I have occasionally conferred with political leaders at
election time. It is but a step, sir--in fact, on Main Street--round the
corner."

The stranger looked up and then rose mechanically as the Colonel resumed
his coat and waistcoat, but not his collar and cravat, which lay limp
and dejected among his papers. Then, sheltering himself beneath a
large-brimmed Panama hat, and hooking his cane on his arm, he led the
way, fan in hand, into the road, tiptoeing in his tight, polishe