table opposite to her father. Fancy had laid her right hand lightly down
upon the table-cloth for an instant, and to her alarm Dick, after
dropping his fork and brushing his forehead as a reason, flung down his
own left hand, overlapping a third of Fancy's with it, and keeping it
there. So the innocent Fancy, instead of pulling her hand from the trap,
settled her eyes on her father's, to guard against his discovery of this
perilous game of Dick's. Dick finished his mouthful; Fancy finished her
crumb, and nothing was done beyond watching Geoffrey's eyes. Then the
hands slid apart; Fancy's going over six inches of cloth, Dick's over
one. Geoffrey's eye had risen.

"I said Fred Shiner is a nice solid feller," he repeated, more
emphatically.

"He is; yes, he is," stammered Dick; "but to me he is little more than a
stranger."

"O, sure. Now I know en as well as any man can be known. And you know
en very well too, don't ye, Fancy?"

Geoffrey put on a tone expressing that these words signified at present
about one hundred times the amount of meaning they conveyed literally.

Dick looked anxious.

"Will you pass me some bread?" said Fancy in a flurry, the red of her
face becoming slightly disordered, and looking as solicitous as a human
being could look about a piece of bread.

"Ay, that I will," replied the unconscious Geoffrey. "Ay," he continued,