ght it was, and after he said that, he sighed so
deeply that Pinney said, "Oh, I beg your pardon." He had, in fact, lost
the sense of Northwick's situation, and now he recurred to it with a
fresh impulse of compassion. If his compassion was mixed with interest,
with business, as he would have said, it was none the less a genuine
emotion, and Pinney was sincere enough in saying he wished it could be
fixed so that Northwick could get back to his home; at his time of life
he needed it.

"And I don't believe but what it _could_ be fixed," he said. "I don't
know much about the points of the case; but I should say that with the
friends you've got, you wouldn't have a great deal of trouble. I presume
there are some legal forms you would have to go through with; but those
things can always be appealed and continued and _nolle prossed_, and all
that, till there isn't anything of them, in the end. Of course, it would
have been different if they could have got hold of you in the beginning.
But now," said Pinney, forgetting what he had already said of it, "the
whole thing has blown over, so that that letter of yours from Rimouski
hardly started a ripple in Boston; I can't say how it was in Hatboro'.
No, sir, I don't believe that if you went back now, and your friends
stood by you as they ought to,--I don't believe you'd get more than a
mere nominal sentence, if you got that."

Northwick made no reply, but Pinney fancied that his words were having
weight with him, and he went on: "I don't know whether you've ever kept
the run of these kind of things; but a friend of mine has, and he says
there isn't one case in ten where the law carries straight. You see,
public feeling has got a good deal to do with it, and when the people
get to feeling that a man has suffered enough, the courts are not going
to be hard on him. No, sir. I've seen it time and again, in my newspaper
experience. The public respects a man's sufferings, and if public
opinion can't work the courts, it can work the Governor's council. Fact
is, I looked into that business of yours a little, after you left, Mr.
Northwick, and I couldn't see, exactly, why you didn't stay, and try to
fix it up with the company. I believe you could have done it, and that
was the impression of a good many other newspaper men; and they're
pretty good judges; they've seen a lot of life. It's exciting, and it's
pleasant, newspaper work is," said Pinney, straying back again into the
paths of auto