were a hideous gang, and all the more hideous for the grin that
overspread their stubbly muzzles at the boy's persiflage.

"Don't let me interrupt you, fellows," he said, flinging a log upon
his horse, and dashing his saw gaily into it. "Don't mind _me!_
I know you hate to lose a minute of this fun; I understand just how
you feel about it, and I don't want you to stand upon ceremony with
_me._ Treat me just like one of yourselves, gents. This beech-
wood is the regular Nova Scotia thing, ain't it? Tough and knotty! I
can't bear any of your cheap wood-lot stuff from around here. What I
want is Nova Scotia wood, every time. Then I feel that I'm gettin'
the worth of my money." His log dropped apart on each side of his
horse, and he put on another. "Well, mates," he rattled on, "this is
lovely, ain't it? I wouldn't give up my little quarter of a cord of
green Nova Scotia before breakfast for anything; I've got into the
way of it, and I can't live without it."

The tramps chuckled at these ironies, and the attendant who looked
into the yard now and then did not interfere with them.

The mate went through his stint as rapidly as he talked, and he had
nearly finished before Lemuel had half done. He did not offer to
help him, but he delayed the remnant of his work, and waited for him
to catch up, talking all the while with gay volubility, joking this
one and that, and keeping the whole company as cheerful as it was in
their dull, sodden nature to be. He had a floating eye that
harmonised with his queer, mobile face, and played round on the
different figures, but mostly upon Lemuel's dogged, rustic industry
as if it really amused him.