When
she had the glass brimming, she tilted a little of its contents into a
second glass and tasted it.
"That's entirely too sweet for a thirsty man," she said.
She poured out half the mixture, and refilling the glass, tasted it a
second time. She submitted that result to the attendant. "Isn't that
about the thing?" she asked.
He replied enthusiastically. "I'd get my wages raised ten a month if I
could learn that trick."
The Angel carried the brimming, frosty glass to Freckles. He removed his
hat, and lifting the icy liquid even with her eyes and looking straight
into them, he said in the mellowest of all the mellow tones of his
voice: "I'll be drinking it to the Swamp Angel."
As he had said to her that first day, she now cautioned him: "Be
drinking slowly."
When the screen-door swung behind them, one of the men at the counter
asked of the attendant: "Now, what did that mean?"
"Exactly what you saw," replied he, rather curtly. "We're accustomed
to it here. Hardly a day passes, this hot weather, but she's picking
up some poor, god-forsaken mortal and bringing him in.
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