The men dropped into their chairs, and Peabody pushed his pistol across the table. The recorder opened a drawer and dropped the evil little thing into it.
"Can you prove that wages are owed you by Mr. Peabody?" he asked, as if nothing had happened.
Wapley, who had been silent all along, pulled a dirty scrap of paper from his pocket.
"There's when we came to Bramble Farm and when we left, and the money we've had," he said harshly. "And when we left, it was 'cause he wouldn't give us what was coming to us—not just a dollar or two of it to spend in Glenside, Miss Betty can tell you that."
"Yes," said Betty eagerly. "That was what they quarreled about."
The recorder, who had been studying the bit of paper, asked a question without raising his eyes.
"What's this thirty-four cents subtracted from this two dollars for—June twenty-fourth, it seems to be?"
"Oh, that was when we had the machinist who came to fix the binder stay to supper," explained Wapley simply. "Lieson and me paid Peabody for butter on the table that night, 'cause Edgeworth's mighty particular about what he gets to eat. He'd come ten miles to fix the machine, and we wanted him to have a good meal."
Mr. Peabody turned a vivid scarlet. He did not relish these disclosures of his domestic economy.
"What in tarnation has that got to do with stealing my chickens?" he demanded testily, "Ain't you going to commit these varmints?"