She stood, stout and menacing, holding
the door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat
opened, smoking.
'We're closed now, sir,' came the perilous, narrowed voice of the
landlady.
The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the
stranger.
'Closing time,' he said.
The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick-moving, dark,
jewel-like eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady.
'I'm stopping here tonight,' he said, in his laconic Cornish-Yankee
accent.
The landlady seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening.
'Oh! indeed!' she cried.' Oh, indeed! And whose orders are those, may I
ask?'
He looked at her again.
'My orders,' he said.
Involuntarily she shut the door, and advanced like a great, dangerous
bird. Her voice rose, there was a touch of hoarseness in it.
'And what might _your_ orders be, if you please?' she cried. 'Who might
_you_ be, to give orders, in the house?'
He sat still, watching her.
'You know who I am,' he said. 'At least, I know who you are.'
'Oh, you do? Oh, do you? And who am _I_ then, if you'll be so good as to
tell me?'
He stared at her with his bright, dark eyes.
'You're my Missis, you are,' he said. 'And you know it, as well as I do.'
She started as if something had exploded in her.
Her eyes lifted and flared madly.
'_Do_ I know it, indeed!' she cried. 'I know no such thing! I know no
such thing! Do you think a man's going to walk into this bar, and tell me
off-hand I'm his Missis, and I'm going to believe him?--I say to you,
whoever you may be, you're mistaken.
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