Mr. Minards had, it is probable, never felt so uncomfortable in all his
born days, and the experience of standing between two fires was new to
him. He looked from the stranger around upon the company, and was met
on all hands by the same expectant stare.

"Well, you see--" he began, and looked around again. The faces were
inexorable. "I declare, friends, the pore chap is drippin' wet. Sich a
tiresome v'yage, too, as it must ha' been from Plymouth, i' this
weather! I dunno how we came to forget to invite en nigher the hearth.
Well, as I was a-sayin'--"

He stopped to search for his hat beneath the settle. Producing a large
crimson handkerchief from the crown, he mopped his brow slowly.

"The cur'ous part o't, naybours, is the sweatiness that comes over a
man, this close weather."

"I'm waiting for your answer," put in the stranger, knitting his brows.

"Surely, surely, that's the very thing I was comin' to. The answer, as
you may say, is this--but step a bit nigher, for there's lashins o'
room--the answer, as far as that goes, is what I make to you, sayin'--
that if you wasn' so passin' wet, may be I'd blurt out what I had i' my
mind. But, as things go, 'twould seem like takin' an advantage."

"Not at all."

"'Tis very kind o' you to say so, to be sure." Old Zeb picked up his
pipe again. "An' now, friends, that this little bit of onpleasantness