he horses, when the
man said again, with an insinuating grin:

"By smoke!"

"Heigh?" exclaimed Levin.

"By smoke!" the man remarked again, with a very ardent emphasis.

"You must have been in Prencess Anne," Levin said, "to swar 'by smoke.'"

The ill-raised man, with such an inferior head and cranish neck, now
slipped around to the front of Levin and looked down on him, and
whispered:

"Hokey-pokey!"

The idea crossed Levin's mind that the scullion of Patty Cannon must
have gone crazy.

"Whair did you pick up them words, Cy?" Levin asked.

"Hokey-pokey!" answered Cy James, with a more mysterious and impressive
sufflation; "Hokey-pokey! By smoke! and Pangymonum, too!"

"Why, Cy! what do you mean? Jimmy Phoebus never swars but in them air
words. Do you know Jimmy Phoebus?"

"Pangymonum, too!" hissed Cy James, with every animation. "Hokey-pokey,
three! an' By smoke, one!"

He put his long arms on his knees, and bent down like a great goose, and
stared into Levin's eyes.

"I never had sense enough," Levin said, "to guess a riddle, Cy Jeems.
Them words I have hearn a good man--my mother's friend--use so often
that they scare me. My mind's been a-thinkin' on him night an' day. Oh,
is he dead?"

"By smoke! Hokey-pokey! an' Pangymonum, too!" the long, lean, excited
fellow whispered, with the greatest solemnity.

"They're Jimmy Phoebus's daily words, dear Cyrus. He was killed on the
river night before last; I saw him fall; it is my sin and misery."

"He ain't dead," Cy James whispered, very low and carefully. "I won't
tell you whar he is till you make Huldy _like_ me."

"How kin I do that, Cy?"

"She thinks I'm a coward and gits whipped by Owen Daw. Tell her I ain't
no coward. Tell her I'm goin' to fry all these people on my griddle--all
but Huldy. Tell her I'm only playin' coward till I gets 'em all in
batter an' the griddle greased, an' then I'll be the bully of the
Cross-roads!"

"Do you hate _me_, Cy Jeems? I ain't done nothin' to you. I'm a
prisoner here till I kin git my boat back from Joe an' go to Prencess
Anne."

"I won't hate you if you kin make Huldy love me," Cy James replied.
"Tell her I ain't no coward; that I'm goin' to be free, an' rich too."
He dropped his palms to his knees again, and whispered, "fur I know whar
ole Patty buries her gole an' silver!"

"Come with those horses, you idle lads," the lisping voice of the
Captain was heard to call. "_Ya, ya!_ there, _luego!_ the morning p