hat's the talk all over town--among the people."

"The people--the people," snapped Barclay, impatiently, "the people
take my money for bridges and halls and parks and churches and statues
and then call me a murderer--oh, damn the people! Who started this
story?"

"See Jake Dolan, John--it's up to him. He can satisfy you," said
Fernald, and turned, leaving Barclay in the street.

Up the hill trudged the gray-clad little man, with his pugnacious
shoulders weaving and his bronzed face set hard and his mean jaw
locked. On the steps of the court-house he found Jake Dolan, smoking a
morning pipe with the loafers in the shade of the building.

"Here you, Jake Dolan," called Barclay, "what do you mean by accusing
me of murdering Bob Hendricks? What did I have to do with it?"

"Easy, easy, Johnnie, my boy," returned Dolan, knocking the ashes from
his pipe on the steps between his feet. "Gentlemen," said Dolan,
addressing the crowd, "you've heard what our friend says. All
right--come with me to my office, Johnnie Barclay, and I'll show
you." Barclay followed Dolan into the basement of the court-house,
with the crowd at a respectful distance. "Right this way--" and Dolan
switched on an electric light. "Do you see that break in the
foundation, Mr. Barclay? You do? And you know in your soul that it
opens into the cave that leads to the cellar of your own house. Well,
then, Mr. Johnnie Barclay--the book that contained the evidence
against Bob Hendricks did not go out of this court-house by the front
door, as you well know, but through that hole--stolen at night when I
was out; and the man who stole it was the horse thief that used to run
the cave--your esteemed friend, Lige Bemis."

The crowd was gaping at the rickety place in the foundation, and one
man pulled a loose stone out and let the cold air of the cave into the
room.

"Lige Bemis came to your house, Mr. Johnnie Barclay, got into the cave
from your cellar, broke through this wall, and stole the book that
contained the forgery made to cover General Hendricks' disgrace. And
who caused that disgrace but the overbearing, domineering John
Barclay, who made that old man steal to pay John Barclay's taxes, back
in the grasshopper year, when the sheriff and the jail were almost as
familiar to him as they are now,--by all counts. Ah, John Barclay,"
said the Irishman, turning to the crowd, "John Barclay, John
Barclay--you're a brave little man sometimes; I've seen you when I
w