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They crowded around the old fellow and shook hands with him and hugged him as if he had been a girl." "I suppose you have reference to the time before you were married," interrupted someone, but Lesponts did not heed him.
This harsh speech showed that the subject was about exhausted, and someone, a man who had come in only in time to hear the last speaker, had just hazarded the remark, in a faint imitation of an English accent, that the sub-officials in this country were a surly, ill-conditioned lot, anyhow, and always were as rude as they dared to be, when Lesponts, who had looked at the speaker lazily, said: "Yes, I have spent a Christmas on a sleeping-car, and, strange to say, I have a most delightful recollection of it."
The Captain's manner, however, was beautiful. 'My dear, this is my friend, Mr. Lesponts, and he has promised to come and dine with us, he said, with the air of a lord, and then he leaned over and whispered something to her.
There was a pause after Lesponts ended, and then one of the fellows rang the bell and said, "Let's drink the old Captain's health," which was unanimously agreed to.
Then she turned to the Captain and said, 'I saved Christmas dinner for you; for when you didn't come I knew the calendar and all the rest of the world were wrong; so to-day is our Christmas." "Well, that's all," said Lesponts; "I did not mean to talk so much, but the old Captain is such a character, I wish you could know him. You'd better believe I went, and I never had a nicer time.
This was surprising enough to have gained him a hearing anyhow, but the memory of the occasion was evidently sufficiently strong to carry Lesponts over obstacles, and he went ahead. "Has any of you ever taken the night train that goes from here South through the Cumberland and Shenandoah Valleys, or from Washington to strike that train?"
But if she's the right sort of a woman she won't do it in company, and she won't let others do it at all; she'll keep you for her own wiping." "There's a lot of sense in that, Lesponts," said one of his auditors, at which there was a universal smile of assent. Lesponts said he had found it out, and proceeded.
Most of the party knew Lesponts's charming wife, so no further explanation was needed. One of them said presently, however, "Lesponts, why didn't you fellows get him some better place?" "He was offered a place," said Lesponts.
That was thirty-three years ago," said Newton, slowly, as if he were doling the years from his memory. "Newton, is your father living?" asked Lesponts. "No, but my mother is," he said; "she still lives at the old home in the country."
When it began, only three persons were engaged in it, two of whom, McPheeters and Lesponts, were in lounging-chairs, with their feet stretched out towards the log fire, while the third, Newton, stood with his back to the great hearth, and his coat-tails well divided.
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