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Major Pentland advanced slowly toward Gant. He was a stocky, fleshy man in the middle fifties, with a ruddy face, a patriarchal beard, and the thick, complacent features of his tribe.

"It's W. O. Gant, isn't it?" he asked in a drawling, unctuous voice.

"Yes," said Oliver, "that's right."

"From what Eliza's been telling me about you," said the major, giving the signal to his audience, "I was going to say it ought to be L. E. Gant."

The room sounded with the fat, pleased laughter of the Pentlands.

"Whew!" cried Eliza, putting her hand to the wing of her broad nose. "I'll vow, father! You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

Gant grinned with a thin false painting of mirth.

The miserable old scoundrel, he thought. He's had that one bottled up for a week.

"You've met Will before," said Eliza.

"Both before and aft," said Will with a smart wink.

When their laughter had died down, Eliza said: "And this—as the fellow says—is Uncle Bacchus."

"Yes, sir," said Bacchus beaming, "as large as life an' twice as sassy."