ez used to live with
my friend and YOURS too, I guess--seein' how the friendship was swapped
into relationship--Squire Blandford."

A slight shade passed over Demorest's face. "Well," he said,
impatiently, "I don't remember you; what then?"

"You don't remember me; that's likely," returned Ezekiel imperturbably,
combing his straggling chin beard with three fingers, "but whether it's
NAT'RAL or not, considerin' the sukumstances when we last met, ez a
matter of op-pinion. You got me to harness up the hoss and buggy the
night Squire Blandford left home, and never was heard of again. It's
true that it kem out on enquiry that the hoss and buggy ran away from
the hotel, and that you had to go out to Warensboro in a sleigh, and
the theory is that poor Squire Blandford must have stopped the hoss
and buggy somewhere, got in and got run away agin, and pitched over the
bridge. But seein' your relationship to both Squire and Mrs. Blandford,
and all the sukumstances, I reckoned you'd remember it."

"I heard of it in Boston a month afterwards," said Demorest, dryly, "but
I don't think I'd have recognized you. So you were the hired man who
gave me the buggy. Well, I don't suppose they discharged you for it."

"No," said Ezekiel, with undisturbed equanimity. "I kalkilate Joan would
have stopped that. Considerin', too, that I knew her when she was Deacon
Salisbury's darter, and our fam'lies waz thick az peas. She knew me well
enough when I met her in Frisco the other day."

"Have you seen Mrs. Demorest already?" said Demorest, with sudden
vivacity. "Why didn't you say so before?" It was wonderful how quickly
his face had lighted up with an earnestness that was not, however,
without some undefinable uneasiness. The alert Ezekiel noticed it and
observed that it was as totally unlike the irresistible dominance of the
man of five years ago as it was different from the heavy abstraction of
the man of five minutes before.

"I reckon you didn't ax me," he returned coolly. "She told me where you
were, and as I had business down this way she guessed I might drop in."

"Yes, yes--it's all right, Mr. Corwin; glad you did," said Demorest,
kindly but half nervously. "And you saw Mrs. Demorest? Where did you see
her, and how did you think she was looking? As pretty as ever, eh?"

But the coldly literal Ezekiel was not to be beguiled into polite or
ambiguous fiction. He even went to the extent of insulting deliberation
before he replied. "I've