mile. Tarbox laid one hand upon the door for
support, and at that moment there was a hurtling sound; something
whizzed by Tarbox's ear, and the meat-dish crashed against the
door-post, and flew into a hundred pieces.

The book-agent ran like a deer for a hundred yards and fell grovelling
upon the turf, the laugh still griping him with the energy of a
panther's jaws, while Claude, who, in blind pursuit, had come
threshing into his father's arms, pulled his hat over his eyes and
strode away towards the skiff ferry. As Mr. Tarbox returned towards
the cottage, St. Pierre met him, looking very grave, if not
displeased. The swamper spoke first.

"Dass mighty good for you I was yondah to stop dat boy. He would 'a'
half-kill' you."

"He'd have served me ex-actly right," said the other, and laughed
again. St. Pierre shook his head, as though this confession were poor
satisfaction, and said,--

"Dass not safe--make a 'Cajun mad. He dawn't git mad easy, but when he
_git_ mad it bre'k out all ove' him, yass. He goin' feel bad all day
now; I see tear' in his eye when he walk off."

"I'm sorry," said Tarbox sincerely, and presently added, "Now, while
you look up a picked gang of timber-men, I'll see if I can charter a
little stern-wheel steamer, get that written permission from Madame
Beausoleil to cut trees on her land, and so forth, and so forth.
You'll hardly see me before bedtime again."

It was the first hour of the afternoon when Claude left his little
workroom and walked slowly down to, and across, Canal Street and into
Bourbon. He had spent the intervening hours seated at his work-table
with his face in his hands. He was in great bitterness. His late
transport of anger gave him no burdensome concern. Indeed, there was
consolation in the thought that he should, by and by, stand erect
before one who was so largely to blame, and make that full confession
and apology which he believed his old-time Grande Pointe schoolmaster
would have offered could Bonaventure ever have so shamefully forgotten
himself. Yet the chagrin of having at once so violently and so
impotently belittled himself added one sting more to his fate. He was
in despair. An escaped balloon, a burst bubble, could hardly have
seemed more utterly beyond his reach than now did Marguerite. And he
could not blame her. She was right, he said sternly to himself--right
to treat his portrait as something that reminded her of nothing,
whether it did so or not; to play