rtment while the dancing and other festivities were in progress.
The itinerant pedagogue was prominent in these mysterious movements
which possibly accounted for his white choker's being askew and his
disposition to cut a dash, not by declining Greek verbs, but by
inclining too amorously toward Miss Abigail, a maiden lady with a
pronounced aversion for frivolity.

The cause of the schoolmaster's frolicsome deportment was apparent to
the soldier when he followed Barnes into the kitchen, where, in a
secluded corner, near the hospitable oven, in the dim light of a
tallow dip, stood a steaming punch bowl. A log smoldered in the
fireplace, casting on the floor the long shadows of the andirons,
while a swinging pot was reflected on the ceiling like a mighty
eclipse. Numerous recesses, containing pans and plates that gleamed by
day, were wrapped in vague mystery. Three dark figures around the
bowl suggested a scene of incantation, especially when one of them
threw some bark from the walnut log on the coals and the flames sprang
up as from a pine knot and the eclipse danced among the rafters
overhead while the pot swung to and fro.

As the manager approached the bowl, the trio, moved by some vague
impelling impulse, locked arms, walked toward the side door, crossed
its threshold in some confusion, owing to a unanimous determination to
pass out at one and the same time, and went forth into the tranquil
night, leaving Barnes and Saint-Prosper the sole occupants of the
kitchen. The manager now helped himself and his companion to the
beverage, standing with his back to the tiny forks of flame from the
shagbark. His face expanded with good-fellowship; joviality shone from
his eyes beaming upon the soldier whom he unconsciously regarded as an
auxiliary.

"Here's to our better acquaintance," he said, placing his hand with
little ceremony on the other's shoulder. "The Bill-Poster!" Raising
his cup. "You gathered them in--"

"And you certainly gathered in the contents of their pockets!"

"A fair robbery!" laughed Barnes, "as Dick Turpin said when he robbed
the minister who robbed the king who robbed the people! A happy
thought that, turning the helmet into a collection box! It tided us
over; it tided us over!"

Saint-Prosper returned the manager's glance in kind; Barnes' candor
and simplicity were apparent antidotes to the other's taciturnity and
constraint. During the country dance the soldier had remained a
passive spectator,