sullen cow," said the butcher.

"I felt afraid I had been too hasty with her, and I was rather sorry I
had been so decided--although, to be sure, she did n't pretend to deny
that she had been communicating."

"Of course," said the butcher: "no use lyin' when you 're caught in the
act."

"Well, after school, she stayed at her desk, fixing her dinner-pail, and
putting her books in a strap, and all that, till all the rest had gone,
and then she came up to my desk, where I was correcting compositions."

"Now for music!" said the butcher.

"She had been crying a little. Well, she looked straight in my face, and
said she, 'Mr. Pollard, I just wanted to say to you that I was n't doing
anything at all when you called me up;' and off she went. Now, that was
just like her,--too proud to say a word before the school."

But here his listener's attention was diverted by the voice of the
book-agent.

"The very best Bible for teachers, of course, is the limp-cover,
protected edges, full Levant morocco, Oxford, silk-sewed, kid-lined,
Bishop's Divinity Circuit, with concordance, maps of the Holy Land,
weights, measures, and money-tables of the Jews. Nothing like having a
really--"

"And so," said the captain, moving back his chair, "they let on the
whole head of water, and scour out the channel to a T."

And then he rapped upon the table.

"Gentlemen," he said, "please draw your chairs up, and let us take
another ballot."

The count resulted as before.

The foreman muttered something which had a scriptural sound. In a few
moments he drew Mr. Eldridge and two others aside. "Gentlemen," he
said to them, "I shall quietly divide the jury into watches, under your
charge: ten can sleep, while one wakes to keep Mr. Smith discussing the
question. I don't propose to have the night wasted."

And, by one man or another, Eli was kept awake.

"I don't see," said the book-agent, "why you should feel obliged to
stick it out any longer. Of course, you are under obligations. But you
've done more than enough already, so as that he can't complain of you,
and if you give in now, everybody 'll give you credit for trying to save
your friend, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for giving in to
the evidence. So you 'll get credit both ways."

An hour later, the tin-pedler came on duty. He had not followed closely
the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry.

"Now, how foolish you be," he said, in a confidential to