ound agin me."

And Mr. Peaslee sank huddled and hopeless into his chair.

His fellow members were for a moment silent. But soon this tale of a
cat, bird shot, and an unexpected Canadian began to disclose a comic
aspect; the plight of poor, respectable Mr. Peaslee, in all the
fresh honors of his jurorship, began to show a ludicrous side; their
own position as grave men seeing what they thought a serious offense
change, as by magic, into a farcical accident, bit by bit revealed
its humor.

Sampson, the foreman, glanced at Paige, the state's attorney. The
young man's face wore an odd expression. Their eyes met, and
Sampson's mouth began to twitch. Albion Small, who was "consid'able
of a joker," suddenly choked. Farnsworth, having revealed to him in
a flash the significance of the harmonica "with harp attachment,"
gave way and laughed outright.

Smiles appeared on faces all round the table; and as the comicality
of the whole affair more and more struck upon their astonished
minds, the smiles became a general laugh, the laugh a roar. And
this mirth had so good-humored a note that Solomon, taking heart,
looked about the table with a sheepish grin.

But his heart sank and his grin vanished when his eyes fell upon
Abijah Keith. For Abijah did not smile. He sat grim as fate, stern
disapproval of all this levity expressed in every deep fold of his
wrinkled old countenance.

A formidable person was Abijah. He had a great brush of white hair,
which stood up fiercely from his narrow forehead; a high, arched
nose like the beak of a hawk, on which rested a pair of huge round
spectacles; a mouth like a straight line inclosed between a great
parenthesis of leathery wrinkles. Up from under his old-fashioned
stock, round a chin like a paving-stone, curled an aggressive,
white, wiry beard, and his blue eyes were steel-bright and hard.

"Can't see what you're cackling so for!" he exclaimed, his shrill
accents full of contempt. "Actin' like a passel of hens! There's a
man shot, ain't they? Somebody shot him, didn't they? He"--and
Abijah pointed a knotted, skinny, hard old finger at the shrinking
Solomon--"he shot him, didn't he? Ser'us business, _I_ call it.
Guess the grand jury's got suthin' to say to it, hain't they? Cat?
Cat's foot, _I_ say. Likely story, likely story. Don't believe a
word on 't."

Solomon dared to steal a look, and was not reassured to see in the
jurymen's faces doubt replacing mirth. Then Hiram Hopkins's hea