"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."