May I ask you to send them out?"
In the pressure of the present emergency, the poor man appeared to
have forgotten the insults which Abner had heaped upon him a few days
before, and Abner himself, who was in high good humor, and really felt
almost sorry for the proud man before him, replied:
"Sartin, Sartin. I'll git em aout, but what's the peeanner agoin fer?"
"The men thought they would like to hear it, and my daughter was kind
enough to play a little for them," said Edwards, his face flushing
again, even after the mortifications of the evening, at the necessity
of thus confessing his powerlessness to resist the most insulting
demands of the rabble.
Abner passed through the door in the back room of the store, which
opened into the living-room, a richly carpeted apartment, with fine
oaken furniture imported from England. The parlor beyond was even more
expensively furnished and decorated. Flat on his back, in the middle
of the parlor carpet, was stretched Meshech Little, dead drunk. In
nearly every chair was a barefooted, coatless lout, drunk and snoring
with his hat over his eyes, and his legs stretched out, or vacantly
staring with open mouth at Desire, who, with a face like ashes and the
air of an automaton, was playing the piano.
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