Mrs. Condiment--there--would look
as sour as if she had bitten an unripe lemon--and Cap would tread on my
gouty toe! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I don't know how you can look me in the
face!" said Old Hurricane, savagely. A very unnecessary reproach, since
poor Mrs. Condiment had not ventured to look any one in the face since
the discovery of the fraud of which she, as well as others, had been an
innocent victim.

"Come, come, my dear major, there is no harm done to you or your
family; therefore, take patience!" said Mr. Goodwin.

"Demmy, sir, I beg you pardon, parson, I won't take patience! You don't
know! Hang it, man, at last they got me to give up one-half of my own
blessed bed to his precious reverence--the best half which the fellow
always took right out of the middle, leaving me to sleep on both sides
of him, if I could! Think of it--me, Ira Warfield--sleeping between the
sheets--night after night--with Black Donald! Ugh! ugh! ugh! Oh, for
some lethean draught that I might drink and forget! Sir, I won't be
patient! Patience would be a sin! Mrs. Condiment, mum, I desire that
you will send in your account and supply yourself with a new situation!
You and I cannot agree any longer. You'll be putting me to bed with
Beelzebub next!" exclaimed Old Hurricane, besides himself with
indignation.

Mrs. Condiment sighed and wiped her eyes under her spectacles.

The worthy minister, now seriously alarmed, came to him and said:

"My dear, dear major, do not be unjust--consider. She is an old
faithful domestic, who has been in your service forty years--whom you
could not live without! I say it under advisement--whom you could not
live without!"

"Hang it, sir, nor live with! Think of her helping to free the
prisoners! Actually taking Black Donald--precious Father Gray!--into
their cell and leaving them together to hatch their--beg you
pardon--horrid plots!"

"But, sir, instead of punishing the innocent victim of his deception,
let us be merciful and thank the Lord, that since those men were
delivered from prison, they were freed without bloodshed; for remember
that neither the warden nor any of his men, nor any one else has been
personally injured."

"Hang it, sir, I wish they had cut all our throats to teach us more
discretion!" broke forth Old Hurricane.

"I am afraid that the lesson so taught would have come too late to be
useful!" smiled the pastor.

"Well, it hasn't come too late now! Mrs. Condiment, mum, mind what