y toward him in their thoughts. Some believed that he had gone to
his account in other courts; some that he was still alive in poverty and
exile, which were punishment enough, as far as he was concerned. But
Gerrish demanded something exemplary, something dramatic from the law.
He blamed the Ponkwasset directors for a species of incivism, in failing
to have Northwick indicted at once, dead or alive.

"Why don't they turn his family out of that house, and hand it over to
the stockholders he has robbed?" he asked one morning in the chance
conclave of loungers in his store. "I understand it is this man Hilary,
in Boston, who has shielded and--and protected him from the start,
and--and right along. I don't know _why_; but if I was one of the
Ponkwasset stockholders, I think I _should_. I should make a point of
inquiring why Northwick's family went on living in my house after he had
plundered me of everything he could lay his hands on."

The lawyer Putney was present, and he shifted the tobacco he had in one
cheek to the other cheek, and set his little, firm jaw. "Well, Billy,
I'll tell you why. Because the house, and farm, and all the real estate
belong to Northwick's family and not to Northwick's creditors." The
listeners laughed, and Putney went on, "That was a point that brother
Northwick looked after a good while ago, I guess. I guess he must have
done it as long ago as when you first wanted his statue put on top of
the soldier's monument."

"I _never_ wanted his statue put on top of the soldier's monument!" Mr.
Gerrish retorted angrily.

Putney's spree was past, and he was in the full enjoyment of the
contempt for Gerrish, which was apt to turn to profound respect when he
was in his cups. He was himself aware of the anomalous transition by
which he then became a leader of conservative feeling on all subjects
and one of the staunchest friends of the status; he said it was the
worst thing he knew against the existing condition of things. He went
on, now: "Didn't you? Well, I think it would look better than that girl
they've got there in circus-clothes." They all laughed; Putney had a
different form of derision for the Victory of the soldier's monument
every time he spoke of it. "And it would suggest what those poor fellows
really died for: that we could have more and more Northwicks, and a
whole Northwick system of things. Heigh? You see, Billy, I don't have to
be so hard on the Northwicks, personally, because I regar