"I feel sorry for the poor lilies of the field that he comes near," sighed Kent, sympathetically. "He is like them now, in neither toiling nor spinning, and yet how ashamed he must make them of their inferior rainment."

"Faugh! it makes me sick to see a dunghill like that strutting around in feathers that belong to game birds."

"O, no; no game bird ever wore such plumage as that. You must be thinking of a peacock, or a bird-of-paradise."

"Well, then, blast it, I hate to see a peacock hatched all at once out of a slinking, roupy, barnyard rooster."

"O, no; since circuses are out of the question now, we ought to be glad of so good a substitute. It only needs a brass band, with some colored posters, to be a genuine grand entry, with street parade."

Alspaugh's triumphal march had now brought him within a few feet of them, but they continued to lounge indifferently on the musket box upon which they had been sitting, giving a mere nod as recognition of his presence, and showing no intention of rising to salute.