ay, if the old wolf presses me too hard in the
matter o' tryin' to git the little man across the street hanged by the
neck and yerself mobbed fer helpin' him! But to-day I'll say no more."

"Very well, Mike." Joe turned wearily to his desk. "I don't want you
to break any promises."

Mr. Sheehan had gone to the door, but he paused on the threshold, and
wiped his forehead again.

"And I don't want to break any," he said, "but if ever the time should
come when I couldn't help it"--he lowered his voice to a hoarse but
piercing whisper--"that will be the devourin' angel's day fer Martin
Pike!"

XVIII

IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY

It was a morning of the warmest week of mid-July, and Canaan lay inert
and helpless beneath a broiling sun. The few people who moved about the
streets went languidly, keeping close to the wall on the shady side;
the women in thin white fabrics; the men, often coatless, carrying
palm-leaf fans, and replacing collars with handkerchiefs. In the
Court-house yard the maple leaves, gray with blown dust and grown to
great breadth, drooped heavily, depressing the long, motionless
branches with their weight, so low that the four or five shabby idlers,
upon the benches beneath, now and then flicked them sleepily with
whittled sprigs. The doors and windows of the stores stood open,
displaying limp wares of trade, but few tokens of life; the clerks
hanging over dim counters as far as possible from the glare in front,
gossiping fragmentarily, usually about the Cory murder, and, anon, upon
a subject suggested by the sight of an occasional pedestrian passing
perspiring by with scrooged eyelids and purpling skin. From street and
sidewalk, transparent hot waves swam up and danced themselves into
nothing; while from the river bank, a half-mile away, came a sound
hotter than even the locust's midsummer rasp: the drone of a
planing-mill. A chance boy, lying prone in the grass of the
Court-house yard, was annoyed by the relentless chant and lifted his
head to mock it: "AWR-EER-AWR-EER! SHUT UP, CAN'T YOU?" The effort
was exhausting: he relapsed and suffered with increasing malice but in
silence.

Abruptly there was a violent outbreak on the "National House" corner,
as when a quiet farmhouse is startled by some one's inadvertently
bringing down all the tin from a shelf in the pantry. The loafers on
the benches turned hopefully, saw what it was, then closed their eyes,
and slumped back into their former