irascibly. "Just another name for a
community that's a perfect sink of meanness and malice. If one believed
all he heard here he'd quit speaking to his own grandmother."

"You will admit, I suppose," said Mrs. Gifford with some spirit, "that
the name Valiant isn't what it used to be in this neighborhood?"

"I will, madam," responded the doctor. "When Valiant left this place (a
mark of good taste, I've always considered it) he left it the worse, if
possible, for his departure. Your remark, however, would seem to imply
demerit on his part. Was he the only man who ever happened to be at the
lucky end of a dueling-ground?"

"Then it isn't true that Valiant was a dead shot and Sassoon
intoxicated?"

"Madam," said the doctor, "I have no wish to discuss the details of that
unhappy incident with you or anybody else. I was one of those present,
but the circumstances you mention have never been descanted upon by me.
I merely wish to point out that the people whom you have been quoting,
are not only a set of ignoramuses with cotton-back souls, but as full of
uncharitableness as an egg is of meat."

"I see by the papers," said Mrs. Gifford, with an air of resignedly
changing the subject, "they've been investigating the failure of the
Valiant Corporation. The son seems to be getting the sharp end of the
stick. Perhaps he's coming down here because they've made it so hot for
him in New York. Well, I'm afraid he'll find _this_ county
disappointing."

"He will that!" agreed the doctor savagely. "No doubt he imagines he's
coming to a kindly countryside of gentle-born people with souls and
imaginations; he'll find he's lit in a section that's entirely too
ready to hack at his father's name and prepared in advance to call him
Northern scum and turn up its nose at his accent--a community so full
of dyed-in-the-wool snobbery that it would make Boston look like a
poor-white barbecue. I'm sorry for _him_!"

Mrs. Gifford, having learned wisdom from experience, resisted the
temptation to reply. She merely rocked a trifle faster and turned a
smile which she strove to make amusedly deprecative upon her hostess.
Just then from the rear of the house came a strident voice:

"Yo', Raph'el! Take yo' han's outer dem cherries! Don' yo' know ef yo'
swallahs dem ar pits, yo' gwineter hab 'pende_gee_tus en lump up en
die?"

The sound of a slap and a shrill yelp followed, and around the porch
dashed an infantile darky, as nude as a black Puck, w