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When Matlack presented himself before Peter Sadler he found that ponderous individual seated in his rolling-chair near the open door, enjoying the smell of the rain. "Hello, Phil!" he cried. "What's wrong at the camp?" The guide left his wet coat and cap on the little piazza outside, and after carefully wiping his feet, seated himself on a chair near the door.
He could smoke afore he got up, and he could smoke at his meals, and he could smoke after he went to bed, and, if he fancied that sort of thing, he could smoke at family prayers; it wouldn't make no difference to me, and I wouldn't say a word to him agin' it. If that was his individdlety, I'd say viddle." "And how about everything else?" asked Matlack.
I suppose you have a larger boat than the one that young man is in? I can see it from here, and it looks very small." "No, ma'am," said Matlack; "that's the only one we've got. And now I guess I'll go see about supper. This has been a lazy day for us, but we always do calc'late on a lazy day to begin with."
"I guess he is on a walkin' tour," said Matlack, "and I guess he's a regular tramp, and there's no orders we've got that's stricter than them against tramps." "Well, I don't care who he is," said Mrs. Archibald, "or what your rules are, but when a perfectly good-mannered man comes to us and asks simply to be allowed to rest, I don't want him to be driven away as if he were a stray pig on a lawn.
If you think," continued Matlack, when the two had reached the woodland kitchen, "that your bein' a hermit is goin' to let you throw all the work on me, you're mistaken. There's a lot of potatoes that's got to be peeled for dinner." Without a word Martin sat down on the ground with a pan of potatoes in front of him and began to work.
"Thank you very much," said he, "and I will continue to speak in figures, and call myself a bishop." "Where I was brought up," interpolated Phil Matlack, still standing behind Mr. Archibald, "I was taught that figures don't lie." "My good sir," said the speaker, with a smile, "in mathematics they don't, in poetry and literature they often do.
"Well, one of them is a gal and the others isn't," replied Matlack, "that's about the p'int of it." During Matlack's walk back the skies cleared, and when he reached the camp he found Mrs. Archibald seated in her chair near the edge of the lake, a dry board under her feet, and the bishop standing by her, putting bait on her hook, and taking the fish off of it when any happened to be there.
You may have noticed her the one with a dark-purple dress and a little purple cap. She's a school-teacher, and she will spend the rest of the summer with her sister in Pennsylvania. "That man Phil Matlack, who is going with us to-morrow, is quite a character, and I expect I shall like him awfully.
"If I were you," said Martin, "I wouldn't try to teach him anything." "You think he is too stupid to learn?" said Matlack, getting more and more angry at the bishop's impertinent and inexcusable conduct. "Well, I've taught stupid people before this." "He's a bigger man than you are," said Martin. Matlack withdrew the knife from the loaf of bread he was cutting, and looked at the young man.
"You come along into the road with this young man and me; I want to talk to you," said Matlack. "Now, Matlack," said Mr. Archibald, "don't be cruel." "I am not," said the guide. "I am the tenderest-hearted person in the world; but even if you say so, sir, I can't let a stranger stay all night in a camp that I've got charge of." "Look here, Matlack," exclaimed Mr.
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