me as if I was handling my own
money, and I beat her down to sixty-six hundred. She won't take a cent
less."

"I'll tell you what that sounds like to me," snarled Buck, after a
moment of meditation. "It sounds as if she was going to get five
thousand and you was looking after your little old sixteen hundred."

A couple of tears squeezed out and down over Avery's flabby cheeks.

"This ain't the first time you've misjudged me, when I've been doing
you a favor," said he. "And it's all on account of the same mis'able
woman that I'm misjudged--and we was living so happy here, me and you.
I wish she was in----" His voice broke.

"I ain't responsible for what I'm saying, Avery," pleaded Buck,
contritely. "You know what things have happened to stir me up the last
few hours--yes, all my life, for that matter. I ain't been comfortable
in mind for thirty years till you come here and cheered me up and
showed me what's what. I appreciate it and I'll prove that to you
before we're done. We'll get along together all right after this. All
is, you must see me through."

Then the two plug hats bent together in earnest conference.

The next morning Avery, armed with an order on the savings bank at the
shire for six thousand six hundred dollars, and with Buck's bank book
in his inside pocket, drove up to the door of Fyles' tavern in Buck's
best carriage, and Signora Rosyelli flipped lightly up beside the
peace commissioner.

He was to pay over the money on the neutral ground at the shire,
receive the letters, put her aboard a train and then come back
triumphantly into that interrupted _otium cum dignitate_ of Smyrna
Corner.

For two days a solitary and bereaved plug hat on the emporium's
platform turned its fuzzy gloss toward the bend in the road at the
clump of alders. But the sleek black nose of Buck's "reader" did not
appear.

On the third day the bank book arrived by mail, its account minus six
thousand six hundred dollars, and between its leaves a letter. It was
an apologetic letter, and yet it was flavored with a note of
complaint. Brick Avery stated that after thinking it all over he felt
that, having been misjudged cruelly twice, it might happen again, and
being old, he could not endure griefs of that kind. He had supported
the first two, but being naturally tender-hearted and easily
influenced, the third might be fatal. Moreover, the conscience of
Signora Rosyelli had troubled her, so he believed, ever since the
affai