I've nothin' at all in the wide wurruld but the clothes an
me back, an' thim hangin' on the underbrush!"--giving a little twist to
the twigs. "An' many a meal an' many a dipper o' drink she's guv me,
little smiles dancin' at her lips."
He sat down in the doorway again, with his face turned towards Pierre,
and the back of his head in the sun. He was a picture of perfect health,
sumptuous, huge, a bull in beauty, the heart of a child looking out of
his eyes, but a sort of despair, too, in his bearing.
Pierre watched him with a furtive humour for a time, then he said
languidly: "Never mind your clothes, give yourself."
"Yer tongue in yer cheek, me spot o' vinegar. Give meself! What's that
for? A purty weddin' gift, says I? Handy thing to have in the house!
Use me for a clothes-horse, or shtand me in the garden for a fairy bower-
aw yis, wid a hole in me face that'd ate thim out o' house and home!"
Pierre drew a piece of brown paper towards him, and wrote on it with a
burnt match. Presently he held it up. "Voila, my simple king, the thing
for you to do: a grand gift, and to cost you nothing now. Come, read it
out, and tell me what you think."
Macavoy took the paper, and in a large, judicial way, read slowly:
"On demand, for value received, I promise to pay to . . . IDA HILTON .
. . or order, meself, Tim Macavoy, standin' seven foot three on me bare
fut, wid interest at nothin' at all."
Macavoy ended with a loud smack of the lips.
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