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The "reading habit" having been inculcated by this lucky find at the library, it was not long before Nickey acquired from the same source a veritable collection of volumes on the polite arts and crafts "The Ready Letter-Writer"; "Manners Maketh Man"; "Seven Thousand Errors of Speech;" "Social Culture in the Smart Set," and the like.
If you don't run over home right now, before you're tempted to do any more flirtin, I'll I'll hold you for breach of promise." To Nickey, the Maxwells were in the nature of a revelation.
Burke gave him a look which changed his convictions; so he and Nickey proceeded gleefully to fulfill their appointed task, while she got supper. When the work was quite finished. Hepsey went over to inspect it, and remarked thoughtfully to herself: "I should think that a half pint of dryer might be able to get in considerable work before to-morrow noon. I hope Jonathan'll like scarlet.
I shifted the boat down to the far end of Steamboat Wharf, from which point of vantage we could see anybody coming after us. There was no telling. Maybe the Port Costa constable would telephone to the Benicia constable. Nickey and I held a council of war. We lay on deck in the warm sun, the fresh breeze on our cheeks, the flood-tide rippling and swirling past.
It really was quite clever of Charley to recall that, this being Wednesday, it was the proper day to visit the church, as clever as it was disturbing to Nickey when he, too, recalled that it was about time for the service to be over, and that his mother must be somewhere on the premises, to say nothing of the assembled mothers of the entire stock company and the rector, and the rector's wife.
"I mean, sirra, to become a Protestan I an' my family, I'm Nickey Feasthalagh, that was in on suspicion o' the burnin' of Nugent's hay; and by them five crasses I was as innocent of that as the child onborn, so I was. Sure they couldn't prove an me, becoorse I came out wid flying colors, glory be to God! Here I am now, sir, an' a right good Prodestan I'll make when I come to understand it.
Nickey, meantime, had fled to the pump behind the church, where he made his ablutions as best he could; then, seeing the vestry room door ajar, he, in his extremity, bolted for the quiet seclusion of the sanctuary.
So she called him aside before they started: "Now, Nickey, remember to act like a gentleman, especially at the table; you must try to do credit to your bringin' up." "Yes, I'll do my level best if it kills me," the boy replied. "Well, what do you do with your napkin when you first sit down to the table?" "Tie it 'round my neck, of course!"
As she and Betty and the little maid, assisted by Donald and Nickey and his helpers, were clearing up the fragments that remained of the entertainment, Hepsey broke forth: "If I don't set that young woman down in her place where she belongs before I've done, I've missed my guess: 'Please announce Miss Virginia Bascom, indeed! If that isn't sauce, I'm the goose." "Oh never mind, Mrs.
Perkins will say when she finds that you've tricked her son into a regular gambling scheme, to get his money away from him?" "Mrs. Perkins," retorted Nickey, thoroughly aroused by the soft impeachment. "I should worry! At the church fair, before Mr. Maxwell came, she ran a fancy table, and tried to sell a baby blanket to an old bachelor; but he wouldn't take it.
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