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A great sputtering of sparks followed a spider-legged, mahogany table was wheeled into place, and the dejected darky left the room for the regions below. "So you two have had a quarrel! Oh, Harry! when will you learn to think twice before you speak? Whose fault was it?" sighed St. George, filling the bowl of his pipe with his slender fingers, slowly tucking in each shred and grain. "Mine."
Sometimes he would leave his nest, and walk up and down among spider-legged tables, tall cabinets, secret-looking bureaus, worked chairs yielding himself to his fancies.
"There's that slab-sided, spider-legged Alta Wood standin' out on the porch," said Taterleg disgustedly, falling behind Lambert, reining around on the other side to put him between the lady and himself. "You'd better stop and bid her good-bye," Lambert suggested. Taterleg pulled his hat over his eyes to shut out the sight of her, turned his head, ignoring her greeting.
A large rocking-chair, a couch covered with chintz, and half a dozen straight-backed, spider-legged chairs were ranged methodically along the sides of the room, while in the centre of the floor, so placed that the fresh morning breeze which entered by the door would blow straight across it to the window shaded by lilac bushes, was a table covered with a snowy cloth.
The Honorable J. Percival Bickford, rotund and suave with the mushiness of the near-gentleman, met them graciously in the hall, having waited for the servant to announce them. Hiram did most of the talking, puffing at one of the host's long cigars. Cap'n Sproul sat on the edge of a spider-legged chair, great unhappiness on his countenance. Mr.
Redslob questioned every man we met on the subject, solemn and noisy conclaves were held upon it round the camp-fires, it was said that the 'European woman' and her 'spider-legged horse' could never get across, and for days before we reached the stream, the chupas, or government water-guides, made nightly reports to the village headmen of the state of the waters, which were steadily rising, the final verdict being that they were only just practicable for strong horses.
I sought the deck-sweep. "Who is that spider-legged gorilla yonder with the sanctimonious countenance?" "It's Captain Jones, sir the chief mate." "Well. This goes clear away ahead of anything I ever heard of before. Do you now I ask you as a man and a brother do you think I could venture to throw a rock here in any given direction without hitting a captain of this ship?"
On one side of this hall was the "best bedroom," ghostly with tightly-closed white shutters and long white dimity curtains to the "four-poster" and shining white sanded floor, and the "best-room," terrible in its grandeur of cold white walls, straight hard sofa, "spider-legged" table, grenadier-like chairs and striped woolen carpet underlaid with straw.
'Do you mean the Roman army? those six sandaled roustabouts in nightshirts, with tin shields and helmets, that marched around treading on each other's heels, in charge of a spider-legged consumptive dressed like themselves? 'That's it! that's it! I was one of them Roman soldiers. I was the next to the last one. A half a year ago I used to always be the last one; but I've been promoted.
The plantations of Woodview touched the horizon, then the line dipped, and between the top branches of a row of elms appeared the roofs of the town. Over a long spider-legged bridge a train wriggled like a snake, the bleak river flowed into the harbour, and the shingle banks saved the low land from inundation. Then the train passed behind the square, dogmatic tower of the village church.
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