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As for the lesser villain, he was already silly with drink. One would have been glad of a chance to eavesdrop again upon those two; but there was no vacant place within earshot of their table. Besides Lanyard wanted his dinner.
Keeping on the track which skirted the river timber the cool, impalpable dust being grateful to my bare feet I heard some people on horseback pass along the parallel track which ran by the fence. Demoralised by the conditions of my unhappy state, I again paused to eavesdrop. Good! One fellow was relating an anecdote suited to gentlemen only.
That is, he came up from the rear, passed alongside the house and halted abruptly, with his foot on the first of three steps rising to a roomy verandah. He had not meant to eavesdrop, to listen to words not meant for his hearing. But he had worn the common footgear of yachtsmen, a pair of rubber-soled canvas shoes, and so had come to the verandah end unseen and noiselessly.
"Could you-uns sure be back hyar by daybreak, Watt!" he asked, fixing the young fellow with a stern eye. "No 'spectable ghost roams around arter sun-up," cried Wyatt, fairly jovial at the prospect of liberation. "Ye mus' be heedful not ter be viewed," the senior admonished him. "I be goin' ter slip about keerful like a reg'lar, stiddy-goin' harnt, an' eavesdrop a bit.
Gibney commenced spinning his yarn, he had almost walked into the worthy pair, and, wishing to avoid the jeers and jibes he felt impending, he had merely stepped aside and hidden behind the potato boxes in order to eavesdrop on their plans, if possible. Had Mr. Gibney been less interested in his past or Mr. McGuffey less interested in the recital of that past they would have seen Scraggs.
"I didn't intend to eavesdrop, and I didn't very much; but since I couldn't help overhearing such a pertinent bit of conversation, I'll come up and we'll get to the bottom of it. Keep your seat, Mrs. Daney." The advice was unnecessary. The poor soul could not have left it. The Laird perched himself on the veranda railing, handed the dumfounded Daney a cigar, and helped himself to one.
They had a community of interest which must extend far beyond racial kinship; they were, even at this very second, out in the courtyard together talking in subdued voices. Mrs. Simpson had been raised a lady, Mr. Hampton, sir; and she knew that in the best families one was not supposed to eavesdrop.
Of late this fashionable amusement called 'Charity' has risen to the dignity of a fine art; and old-fashioned Benevolence that did its holy work silently and slyly in a corner, forbidding left hand to eavesdrop, or gossip with right hand, would never recognize its gaudy, noisy, bustling modern sister.
Tully departed than Bryce rose and closed the door behind her. John Cardigan opened the conversation with a contented grunt: "Plug the keyhole, son," he continued. "I believe you have something on your mind and you know how Mrs. Tully resents the closing of that door. Estimable soul that she is, I have known her to eavesdrop. She can't help it, poor thing! She was born that way."
I don't much mind your knowing. And that's the greatest compliment I could pay you. It's Eagle March, of course." With that the orchestra stopped dead as if on purpose to eavesdrop, and I had made a present of the name to the whole audience. But luckily that was all I had given. Any girl may yell any man's name, just as any cat may look at any king.
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