"She came down the blinds." And he wiped his
face with his coat sleeve.
"Mine came through the cellar," said Stevey Todd. "She brought a pot
of jam in her pocket, or else," he added cautiously, "or else it was
pickles. It might've been pickles, but it runs in my mind it was jam."
But Pemberton's wife had been a widow first, as he once told me, and
Captain Tom's and Stevey Todd's romances didn't run that way, by
accounts. But as to Uncle Abimelech, it may be what he said was true.
They all fell silent again, except Andrew McCulloch, who whistled:
"Whew, whew, whew!" and pulled his whiskers, now this one and that,
and said:
"Bless my soul! You don't mean it!" and fidgeted in his chair. "I
didn't suppose it was so usual, I didn't! God bless my soul!"
"It's their nature," said Captain Buckingham at length. "They're
made that way."
"You don't mean it!"
"The best thing for 'em is hotel keeping."
"Eh!"
"Nothing like it, you can take my word. 'Pemberton's Hotel.
Pemberton and Buckingham, Owners and Proprietors. B. Corliss,
Manager. Peace, Propriety, and Patronage.' Aye, that's it. They get
restless. If they elopes, let 'em keep a hotel. Nothing like it.
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