“What have you got for breakfast?” he said to Eliza.
“Why,” she said, pursing her lips meditatively, “would you like some eggs?”
“Yes,” said he, “with a few rashers of bacon and a couple of pork sausages.”
He strode across the dining-room and went up the hall.
“Steve! Ben! Luke! You damned scoundrels!” he yelled. “Get up!”
Their feet thudded almost simultaneously upon the floor.
“Papa’s home!” they shrieked.
Mr. Duncan watched butter soak through a new-baked roll. He looked through his curtain angularly down, and saw thick acrid smoke biting heavily into the air above Gant’s house.
“He’s back,” said he, with satisfaction.
So, at the moment looking, Tarkinton of the paints said: “W. O.’s back.”
Thus came he home, who had put out to land westward, Gant the Far— Wanderer.
8
Eugene was loose
