e was bullying to be done by anyone, he was his own candidate
always. Surcharged with distracting regrets as he was, he had an
inspiration. He would turn the flood of accusation away from himself.

"Where is that Josephson?" he whooped. "He is the one actually to blame,
not us. Let me get my hands on that Josephson once!"

"You can't!" jeered Quinlan. "He's quit--he's gone--he's beat it! He
wrote me a note, though, and mailed it back to me when he was beating it
out of town, telling me to tell you how slick he'd worked it on you." He
felt in his pockets. "I got that note here somewhere--here it is. I'll
read it to you, Lobel--he calls you an old scoundrel in one place and an
old sucker in another."

"Look out--catch him, Quinlan!" cried Mr. Geltfin. "Look at his
face--he's fixing to faint or something."

The prime intent of this recital, as set forth at the beginning, was to
tell why Mr. Max Lobel had an attack of apoplexy. That original purpose
having been now carried out, there remains nothing more to be added and
the chapter ends.

CHAPTER VIII

ALAS, THE POOR WHIFFLETIT!

Over Jefferson Poindexter's usually buoyant spirits a fabric of gloom,
black, thick, and heavy, was spread like a burying-pall. His thoughts
were the color of twelve o'clock at night at the bottom of a coal-mine
and it the dark of the moon. Moroseness crowned his brow; sorrow berode
his soul, and on his under lip the bull-bat, that eccentric bird which
has to sit lengthwise of the limb, might have perched with room to
spare. You couldn't see the ointment for the flies, and Gilead had gone
out of the balm business. There was a reason. The reason was Ophelia
Stubblefield.

On an upturned watering-piggin alongside Mittie May's stall in the
stable back of the house, Jeff sat and just naturally gloomed. To this
retreat he had been harried against his will. Out of her domain, which
was the kitchen, Aunt Dilsey had driven him with words barbed and
bitter.

"Tek yo'se'f on 'way f'um yere, black boy!" Such had been her command.
"Me, I's plum distracted an' wore out jes' f'um lookin' at you settin'
'round sullin' lak a' ole possum. Ef Satan fine some labor still fur
idle hands to do, same ez de Holy Word say he do, he suttinly must be
stedyin' 'bout openin' up a branch employmint agency fur cullid only,
'specially on yore account. You ain't de Grand President of de Order of
de Folded Laigs, tho' you shorely does ack lak it. You's s'posed