Richard Forrest, Bachelor — page 245: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

236 A LIVING SAINI. CHAPTER XXVIII. A LIVING SAINT. ‘What o’clock is it, pard?”’ ‘“FKo’-twenty-five. Late for the ‘bus,’’’ announced Tim- othy Perry, the landlord of Perry’s Inn, to his bartender, as the latter stretched himself, after forty winks taken beside the stove. ‘It'll be mo’ than late to-day, I calculate,’’ yawned the bartender. ‘‘It’s blowing great guns, and the nags’ll have a tough pull of it comin’ around Blue Rock. Snowin’ again,’’ going to the window, “‘and it’ll keep it up right smart till mornin’, too, or I miss my guess.’”’ The ‘‘Inn,’”’? a small, story and a half frame-building, surrounded by a broken-down fence, painted bright green, and displaying a swinging sign over the door, was the only tavern between Wallford and the large town of T—~—, a distance of more than twenty miles. It was the eighteenth of February, and the coldest day of the season. Snow had covered the frozen ground for a week, and that which was falling now was drifting heavily in spots. While the two men were conversing a colored boy of about fourteen, ‘‘chunkily’’ built and with two rows of shining, white teeth, rushed in. It was Tony, the stable-boy. ‘‘Skatin’s fus’class,’’ he said, tossing his skates into a corner. ‘‘Blair’s pond’s froze like dis yer flo’, but law, law me! it’s too col’ for dis chil’. Me years mos’ drapped clean off.’’ Pity they hadn't,”’ retorted Tim, testily, ‘‘only for the COMME OOO KS.EO©