carried herself with the ease and dignity of a princess, and looked
straight past, or rather through the staring crowd, fastened like
inverted brackets to the tavern wall. Her great, dreamy eyes did not
seem to note them.

When she and her companion had entered the hall and closed the door
behind them, every tilted chair came down to the floor with a bang, and
many voices exclaimed in concert, "Who the devil is she?" Curiosity was
satisfied at eight o'clock in the evening, for at that hour Doctor
Paracelsus Aesculapius, as he fantastically called himself, opened the
doors of his traveling apothecary shop and exposed his "universal
panacea" for sale, while at the same time, "Pepeeta, the Queen of
Fortune Tellers," entered her booth and spread out upon a table the
paraphernalia by which she undertook to discover the secrets of the
future.

When the evening's work was ended, Pepeeta at once retired; but the
doctor entered the bar-room, followed by a curious and admiring crowd.
He was in a happy and expansive frame of mind, for he had done a "land
office" business in this frontier village which he was now for the first
time visiting.

"Have a drink, b-b-boys?" he asked, looking over the crowd with an air
of superiority and waving his hand with an inclusive gesture. The motley
throng of loafers sidled up to the bar with a deprecatory and automatic
movement. They took their glasses, clinked them, nodded to their
entertainer, muttered incoherent toasts and drank his health. The
delighted landlord, feeling it incumbent upon him to break the silence,
offered the friendly observation: "S-s-see you s-s-stutter. S-s-stutter
a little m-m-my own self."