"I quite understand," said the latter; and tapping his forehead, he added, "I am a man of business still. I am not so old as all that, whatever Admonition may say."
"Now what I want to know," pursued Elijah, "is this—for how long are you going to pay your cousin's rent? For how long is that Glory to come to me and defy me, and throw the money down before me?"
"I don't quite take you," said Pettican.
"How many times will you pay their rent?" asked Rebow.
"Well!" said the cripple, passing his hand over his face. "I don't want them to stay at your farm at all. I want them to come here and take care of me. I cannot defend myself. If I try to be a man—that girl, I forget her name, you confuse me about it—told me to be a man, and I will be a man, if she will back me up. I have been a man somewhat, have I not, master, in chucking cousin Timothy's traps to the gull?—that I call manly. You will see the girl—Mehalah—I have the name now. I will keep my note-book open at the place. Mehalah, Mehalah, Mehalah, Mehalah."
"I want to know" broke in Elijah.
"Let me repeat the name ten times, and then I shall not forget it again." Pettican did so. " You called her something else. Perhaps we are not speaking of the same person."
"Yes, we are. I call her Glory. I am accustomed to that name. Tell me what you want with her."
"I want her and her mother to come and live with me, and take care of me, and then I can be a man, and make head against the wind that is now blowing in my teeth. Shall you see them?"
"Yes."
"To-day?"
"Perhaps."
"Then pray make a point of seeing the girl or her mother, in case she should not notice the flag, and say that I wish them to come here at once; at once it must be, or I shall never have courage to play the man again, not as I have to-day. They did put my monkey up by removing my crutches and hoisting them to the mast-head, leaving me
