ne. "Can't
you see that if you cave in now, after stan'n' out nine hours"--and
he looked at a silver watch with a brass chain, and stroked his
goatee--"nine hours and twenty-seven minutes--that you 've made jest
rumpus enough so as't he won't dare to foreclose on you, for fear they
'll say you went back on a trade. On t' other hand, if you hold clear
out, he'll turn you out-o'-doors to-morrow, for a blind, so 's to look
as if there wa' n't no trade between you. Once he gits off, he won't
know Joseph, you bet! That's what I 'd do," he added, with a sly laugh.
"Take your uncle's advice."

"The only trouble with that," said Eli, shortly, "is that I don't owe
him anything."

"Oh," said the pedler; "that makes a difference. I understood you did."

Three o'clock came, and brought Mr. El-dridge. He found Eli worn out
with excitement.

"Now, I don't judge you the way the others do," said Mr. Eldridge, in a
low tone, with his hand on Eli's knee. "I know, as I told you, just the
way you feel. But we can't help such things. Suppose, now, that I had
kept dark, and allowed to the owners that that man was always sober,
and I had heard, six months after, of thirty or forty men going to the
bottom because the captain was a little off his base; and then to think
of their wives and children at home. We have to do some hard things; but
I say, do the square thing, and let her slide."

"But I can't believe he 's guilty," said Eli.

"But don't you allow," said Mr. Eldridge, "that eleven men are more sure
to hit it right than one man?"

"Yes," said Eli, reluctantly, "as a general thing."

"Well, there's always got to be some give to a jury, just as in
everything else, and you ought to lay right down on the rest of us. It
is n't as if we were at all squirmish. Now, you know that if you hold
out, he 'll be tried again."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Got to be--no other way," said Mr. Eldridge. "Now, the next time, there
won't be anybody like you to stand out, and the judge 'll know of this
scrape, and he'll just sock it to him."

Eli turned uneasily in his chair.

"And then it won't be understood in your place, and folks 'll turn
against you every way, and, what's worse, let you alone."

"I can stand it," said Eli, angrily. "Let 'em do as they like. They
can't kill me."

"They can kill your wife and break down your children," said Mr.
Eldridge. "Women and children can't stand it. Now, there's that man they
were speaking of; he live