Tete Rouge, With His
Usual Alacrity On Such Occasions, Was The First To Take His Seat.
In
his former capacity of steamboat clerk, he had learned to prefix the
honorary MISTER to everybody's name, whether of high or low degree;
so Jim Gurney was Mr. Gurney, Henry was Mr. Henry, and even Delorier,
for the first time in his life, heard himself addressed as Mr.
Delorier.
This did not prevent his conceiving a violent enmity
against Tete Rouge, who, in his futile though praiseworthy attempts
to make himself useful used always to intermeddle with cooking the
dinners. Delorier's disposition knew no medium between smiles and
sunshine and a downright tornado of wrath; he said nothing to Tete
Rouge, but his wrongs rankled in his breast. Tete Rouge had taken
his place at dinner; it was his happiest moment; he sat enveloped in
the old buffalo coat, sleeves turned up in preparation for the work,
and his short legs crossed on the grass before him; he had a cup of
coffee by his side and his knife ready in his hand and while he
looked upon the fat hump ribs, his eyes dilated with anticipation.
Delorier sat just opposite to him, and the rest of us by this time
had taken our seats.
"How is this, Delorier? You haven't given us bread enough."
At this Delorier's placid face flew instantly into a paroxysm of
contortions. He grinned with wrath, chattered, gesticulated, and
hurled forth a volley of incoherent words in broken English at the
astonished Tete Rouge.
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