nership! This suits
me. You furnish the brains and the respectability; I take the risk, and I
get my fair share. Then, if I should ever get caught, you are unsmirched;
you can keep on making money. And you'll keep on giving me my share. Oh,
yes; you will! You've such a good heart, Mr. Oscar! I know you. You
wouldn't want old Joey hanged! Not you! Oh, no!"

CHAPTER XI

A stranger came to Abingdon by the morning train. Because of a
wide-brimmed gray hat, which he wore pushed well back, to testify against
burning suns elsewhere--where such hats must be pulled well down, of
necessity--a few Abingdonians, in passing, gave the foreigner the tribute
of a backward glance. A few only; Abingdon has scant time for curiosity.
Abingdon works hard for a living, like Saturday's child, three hundred
and sixty-five days a year; except every fourth year.

Aside from the hat, the foreigner might have been, for apparel, a thrifty
farmer on a trip to his market town. He wore a good ready-made suit, a
soft white shirt with a soft collar, and a black tie, shot with red. But
an observer would have seen that this was no care-lined farmer face;
that, though the man himself was small, his feet were disproportionately
and absurdly small; that his toes pointed forward as he walked; and
detraction might have called him bow-legged. This was Mr. Peter Johnson.

Mr. Johnson took breakfast at the Abingdon Arms. He expressed to the
landlord of that hostelry a civil surprise and gratification at the
volume of Abingdon's business, evinced by a steadily swelling current of
early morning wagons, laden with produce, on their way to the station,
or, by the river road, to the factory towns near by; was assured that he
should come in the potato-hauling season if he thought that was busy;
parried a few polite questions; and asked the way to the Selden Farm.

He stayed at the Selden Farm that day and that night. Afternoon of the
next day found him in Lawyer Mitchell's waiting-room, at Vesper,
immediate successor of Mr. Chauncey Bowen, then engaged in Lawyer
Mitchell's office on the purchase of the Watkins Farm; and he was
presently ushered into the presence of Mr. Mitchell by the demon clerk.

Mr. Mitchell greeted him affably.

"Good-day, sir. What can I do for you to-day?"

"Mr. Oscar Mitchell, is it?"

"The same, and happy to serve you."

"Got a letter for you from your cousin, Stan. My name's Johnson."

Mitchell extended his hand, gave Pete