Old Mr. Nichols, (the indigent father), remembered Courtney's
grandfather very well, and, being apt to repeat himself, told
and retold the story of a horse-trade in which he got the better
of Silas Thane. Mrs. Nichols, living likewise in the remote past,
remembered being in his grandmother's Sunday-school class, and
how people used to pity the poor thing because Silas ran around
considerable after other women,--'specially a lively-stableman's
wife up in the city,--and what a terrible time she had when John
Robinson's Circus came to town a little while before her first child
was born and the biggest boa-constrictor in captivity escaped and
eat up two lambs on Silas's farm before it went to sleep and was
shot out in the apple orchard by Jake Billings. She often wondered
whether her worrying about that snake had had any effect on the
baby, who, it appears, ultimately grew up and became Courtney's
father. The young man smilingly sought to reassure her, but after
twice repeating his remark, looked so embarrassed that Mr. Hatch
gloomily announced from the foot of the table:
"She's deef."
Now, as to Mr. Courtney Thane. He was a tall, spare young man, very
erect and soldierly, with an almost unnoticeable limp. He explained
this limp by confessing that he had got into the habit of favouring
his left leg, which had been injured when his machine came down
in flames a short distance back of the lines during a vicious gas
attack by the enemy--(it was on this occasion that he was "gassed"
while dragging a badly wounded comrade to a place of safety)--but
that the member was quite as sound as ever and it was silly of
him to go on being so confounded timid about it, especially as it
hadn't been anything to speak of in the beginning,--nothing more,
in fact, than a cracked knee joint and a trifling fracture of the
ankle.
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