d apples, which, he said, regulated the
bowels.

On returning from the excursion, Blennerhassett hurried into his
library, lugging a basket filled with botanical specimens; and Byle
prepared to leave the premises. Before starting, he beckoned the
gardener, who sulkily responded to the sign. The pertinacious visitor
was proof against repulse. No social coolness could chill his
confiding ardor. He took Peter's arm, and with a backward jerk of the
head declared interrogatively:

"The Mogul is sort of queer, isn't he? A screw loose somewhere, eh?"

"Well," responded Peter cautiously, "yes and no; he is queer and he
isn't queer. He has plenty of book learning and plenty of money, and a
fool can't get much of either. Folks say he has every kind of sense
but common sense."

"At first he didn't want to be sociable. I asked him a civil question
about a public matter, and he shut up like a clam. Now can _you_ tell
me, as man to man, why the deuce that hunk of beef is put to soak in
that puddle, up at the head of the island?"

Peter chuckled in the contemptuous manner of a practical man, without
sympathy for speculative genius.

"That's one of his chemical experiments. The man is always up to
something of the kind. The carcass of a dead 'og was dug up on the
place, and his Honor noticed that it had turned into something like
tallow, and he takes the notion that the water here has power to
change flesh into solid fat--_hadipocere_, he calls it--which he
thinks may be used to make candles."

Byle listened to the solution of the lean-meat mystery with waning
attention, for before the explanation was concluded his roving eye
caught glimpses of an apparition more interesting than the gardener's
dry sarcasm. He discerned, through openings in the boscage fringing
the river bank on the Ohio shore, an object like a scarlet flag flying
rapidly along.

"Greased lightning! What strange bird is that coming down the river
road? A woman on horseback, sure as Easter flowers! Two of 'em, one in
red and one in black. Don't they make them animals cut dirt? I
wouldn't miss this sight for a hogshead of tree-honey. Why, it beats a
Pittsburg horse-race on the Fourth of July!"

"Oh, it's mamma! It's mamma and Miss Evaleen coming back from
Marietta," shouted Dominick.

A gang of colored men, led by Honest Moses, poled an unwieldy scow to
the Ohio shore, took the dashing equestriennes on board and ferried
back to the island.

The announceme