e burning
the midnight oil going over the papers in the case of Timms. I want to
weigh all the testimony carefully in the case given in Court about his
own and his brother's relations with the woman Mary Brown. As long as
I am the Governor of the State of Harpeth, no honest man is going to
swing for protecting a good woman from the outrages of a brute. And
yet Timms confessed the crime and denied the motive. Cross-examining
failed to get the statement from the woman that would justify my
reprieving or pardoning him. I cannot even seem to dishonor the
proceedings of the courts of the State and, boy, I'm just
plain--up--against--it. Here we are at my own side door. Good night,
and make a lightning toilet if you want to get to that pie on time.
Good night, again!" And with those words, which explained his very
deep trouble to me, my Gouverneur Faulkner descended from the seat
beside me in the Cherry to the pavement beside his Mansion and bade me
hurry from him.

CHAPTER XIV

TO BEAR MEN AND TO SAVE THEM

In going I turned and looked back at him to see that he was standing
looking after me with a very great weariness in the manner of the
drooping of his shoulders and the sadness of his face.

"Roberta," I said to myself, "a woman who so reverences and regards a
man as you do that Gouverneur Faulkner will find a way to help him so
that he shall not suffer as he does in regard to not knowing with
surety the reason of that Mr. Timms' making a murder upon his brother.
What is it that you shall do?"

And to that question to myself I found an answer in only two short
hours while partaking of the very famous custard pie at the table of
that very lovely Madam Taylor.

All of those very gay and nice "babes and sucklings" which the
Gouverneur Faulkner had mentioned, were with me at the table of Madam
Taylor with very much laughter and merriment, also much conversation.
And in that conversation were very many jokes upon my Buzz because he
had been transported to the Capitol by my Uncle, the General Robert,
and given hard labor until almost the time to arrive for that nice
supper, which he was eating with much hunger. On account of lateness
he had not been able to come to the house of lovely Sue to escort her
with him to the home of Madam Taylor. That Sue with pretended
haughtiness was looking very high above the head of the humble Buzz.

"Well, it's not my fault that Timms up and biffed his brother into
eternity all