"Here's Ros Paine," he exclaimed. "He'll know more about it than anybody
else. Hey, Ros, how many hired help does he keep, anyhow? Thoph says
it's eight, but I know I counted more'n that, myself."

"It's eight, I tell you," broke in Newcomb, before I could answer.
"There's the two cooks and the boy that waits on 'em--"

"The idea of having anybody wait on a cook!" interrupted Mullet. "That's
blame foolishness."

"I never said he waited on the cooks. I said he waited on them--on the
family. And there's a coachman--"

"Why do they call them kind of fellers coachmen?" put in Thoph. "There
ain't any coach. I see the carriages when they come--two freight cars
full of 'em. There was a open two-seater, and a buckboard, and that
high-wheeled thing they called a dog-cart."

Beriah Doane laughed uproariously. "Land of love!" he shouted. "Does the
dog have a cart all to himself? That's a good one! You and me ain't got
no dog, Sam, but we might have a couple of cat-carts, hey? Haw! haw!"

Thoph paid no attention to this pleasantry. "There was the dog-cart," he
repeated, "and another thing they called the 'trap.' But there wan't any
coach; I'll swear to it."

"Don't make no difference," declared Alvin; "there was a man along that
SAID he was the coachman, anyhow. And a big minister-lookin' feller
who was a butler, and two hired girls besides the cooks. That's nine,
anyhow. One more'n you said, Thoph."