"Black Bart!" said Jimmy. "Say, now----"

"Well, good mate," said I, and laid a hand on his curly fair head,

"what shall I say?"

"Say nothin'," he remarked, dropping his voice. "Listen!"

"Yes?"

"We have held a council."

"Who has?"

"Why, me and Jean Lafitte and the heartless jade. I told her you sent

us to her to bid her seek your presence."

"Jimmy! What on earth do you mean! That's precisely the last thing I

would have done--I haven't done it. On the contrary----"

"I told her," he resumed calmly, "that when Black Bart, the pirut,

spoke, he spoke to be obeyed. She said, 'I can't go,' and I said, 'You

gotta go.'"

"You, yourself, may now go and tell her that there has been a very bad

mistake, Jimmy; and that she need not come."

"An' make her cry worse? I ain't goin' to do it!"

"Sir! This is mutiny!--But did she cry, Jimmy?"

"Yes. Awful. She said she was homesick. She ain't. I don't know what

really is the matter. I ast Jean Lafitte, an' he said maybe you'd

know. We thought maybe it was something about yon varlet. Do you

know?"

"No, I do not, Jimmy." I found myself engaged in one of those

detestable conversations where one knows the talk ought to end, yet

dislikes to end it.

Jimmy stood for some time, much perturbed, looking every way but at

me, and at last he blurted out.

"Don't you just jolly well awfully love the fair captive, yon

heartless jade--my Auntie Helen? Don't you, Black Bart?"

I made no answer, but frowned very much at his presumption.

"--Because, everybody else does. She's nice. I should think you would.

I do, I know mighty well."

"She is--she is--she's a very estimable young woman, Jimmy," said I,

coloring. "I think I may say that without compromising myself."

"Then why do you hurt her feelings the way you do--when she's plumb

gone on you, the way she is?"

I sprang toward him to clap a hand over his garrulous mouth, but he

evaded me, and spoke from behind the bathroom door. "Well, she is!

Don't I hear her sticking up for you all the time--didn't I hear her

an' Auntie Lucinda havin' a reg'lar row over it again, 'I don't care

if he hasn't got a cent!' says she."

"But yon varlet is rich," said I.

"She didn't mean yon varlet--she meant you, I'm pretty sure, Black

Bart. An' she's been feedin' Partial all the afternoon--say, he's the

shape of a sausage."

"She is heartless, Jimmy! Little do you know the ways of a heartless

jade--she wants to win away from me the last thing on earth I

have--even my dog. That's all. Now, Jimmy, you must go."




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