ilted it to let the contents run into the wooden trough.

"Now, that's more like it," he said, his voice rising above the
suction-pump noise of the hungry animal. He lowered the empty pail to
the ground, and with a paddle began to dig out the mushy sediment from
the bottom and throw it into the trough, as a mason might mortar from a
trowel. "The truth is, Alf, I've got an apology to make to you, and I
didn't want to do it up thar before them women. The other day when I
said that about old Welborne a-sendin' you a bunch o' flowers to
decorate Dick's grave I wasn't actually thinkin' about you as much as I
was about Welborne an' his close-fisted ways. Of course, now I think of
it again, it _would_ be a good way for 'im to git back at you for yore
joke in sendin' the tombstone man to him, and I catch myself lafin'
every time I think of it, and the way you'd look if he did, but--"

"What the devil do you mean?" Henley broke in, testily. "Here you are
startin' in to apologize for a thing and going over it again word for
word? Have you plumb lost your senses?"

"Was I doin' that?" Wrinkle asked, blandly, though even in the twilight
Henley could see that his eyes were twinkling. "Well, I'm sorry again,
and I'm just man enough to say so, Alf. I'll apologize as many times as
you like. I'll keep on till you _are_ satisfied. But you must listen.
You are a-gittin' powerful touchy here lately, and it ain't becomin' in
a man of yore dignity. It will git so after a while that I can't express
any sort of opinion to you without a fist-fight. I was goin' on to say
that I was jest thinkin' of old Welborne's quick wit in every emergency
that set me to wonderin' that day how he might act in sech a case. They
say everything is grist to his mill--that he turns every single thing
that drifts his way into profit great or small. And that day after you
railed out at me in the store I went across the Square to see how yore
joke would terminate. The door of his dingy little office was open, an'
I could see the grave-rock man inside bendin' over old Welborne at his
little table, pointin' at the pictures in his book and sweatin' like a
nigger in a cotton-gin. But what struck me most of all was the glazed
look in old Welborne's eye; he looked like he wasn't hearin' a word the
fellow was spoutin', but was thinkin' o' some'n else plumb different. I
walked on and hung about outside till the tombstone man come out. He was
as mad as Hector. I seed he was,