it's good. _'I'm big, an sassy, an' full o' meanness, but what
sand I've got ain't to be seen with a double-barrelled microscope. I'm
as false as Judas; an' Ananias wouldn't be seen walkin' arm in arm
with me in the place whar I'd oughter be to-night. I'd steal milk from
a blind kitten an' sell it as cream to my own mother five minutes
after.'_ Underline that: it's straight goods. Now then fer the
finish. _'I wouldn't offer a fair price fer Sunny Bushes, because I
aimed ter git it fer nothing. I wouldn't allow others to buy it fer
the same reason. I used the power that the Devil give me to prevent a
railroad, which I own, furnishin' cars to J. Panel, an' las'ly, I
caused money ter be loaned to said J. Panel so's to git him completely
under my heel. Also I built a church in San Lorenzy, an' I write these
yere lines in the vestry of it as a sorter penance. I swear solemn
that this is the first time in my life that I ever tole the truth, an'
I'll never do it agen, if I know myself._'

"Sign that, an' give it ter me," said Uncle Jap.

Leveson, purple with rage and humiliation, signed it.

* * * * *

At this psychological moment we made our presence known.

"Uncle Jap," said I, "don't you think that document ought to be
witnessed."

"Jee-whillikins! Ef it ain't you. Who's that a-peekin' behind ye?"

"It's me, Jaspar," said Mrs. Panel meekly.

Uncle Jap unlocked the door of the vestry and let us in. Leveson sat
huddled up in his chair. Uncle Jap prodded him with the ancient pistol
which he still held in his hands.

"Can't you offer a lady a chair?" he said testily. Leveson offered his
chair, upon the extreme edge of which Mrs. Panel deprecatingly seated
herself. Uncle Jap eyed her with wrinkled interrogation.

"What in thunder brought ye to San Lorenzy?"

Mrs. Panel twisted her fingers.

"I looked in the drawer, an' I see _that_," she indicated the
weapon, "was missin'."

"Did ye? Now, Lily Panel, you don't mean to tell me that you thought I
was goin' ter murder this feller?"

Mrs. Panel looked at Leveson with an expression which I have seen in
the eyes of foothill mothers, whose children run barefoot, when they
have found a rattlesnake. Then she drawled out: "Wal, I hoped you
might, but----"

"Why, Lily! You hoped I might?"

"Yes; but I feared you'd git murdered first. Oh Jaspar, I didn't know
you was sech a man."

She stood up, her eyes were shining, her face radiant "Fergive m