Heywood flung himself into a chair.

"Not dead yet, you rascal?" he cried. "And we came all the way to see
you. No chow, either."

"Oh, allow me," mumbled their host, in a flutter. "My--she--I will
speak, I go bring you." He shuffled away, into some further chamber.

Heywood leaned forward quickly.

"Eat it," he whispered, "whether you can or not! Pleases the old one, no
bounds. We're his only visitors--"

"Here iss not moch whiskey." Wutzler came shambling in, held a bottle
against the light, and squinted ruefully at the yellow dregs. "I will
gif you a _kong_ full, but I haf not."

He dodged out again. They heard his angry whispers, and a small
commotion of the household,--brazen dishes clinking, squeals, titters,
and tiny bare feet skipping about,--all the flurry of a rabbit-hutch in
Wonderland. Once, near the threshold, a chubby face, very pale, with
round eyes of shining jet, peered cautious as a mouse, and popped out of
sight with a squeak. Wutzler, red with excitement, came and went like an
anxious waiter, bringing in the feast.

"Here iss not moch," he repeated sadly. But there were bits of pig-skin
stewed in oil; bean-cakes; steaming buns of wheat-flour, stuffed with
dice of fat pork and lumps of sugar; three-cornered rice puddings,
_no-me_ boiled in plantain-leaf wrappers; with the last of the whiskey,
in green cups. While the two men ate, the shriveled outcast beamed