He hated this preaching, this morality, this harping on the hope of his redemption. He was all right; no harm in him. But they would not leave him alone. They nagged at him; nagged.... He hated it.
He wondered, as an undercurrent to this rage, who had written the letter. It might have been his father, or his mother, or Routt. Routt was a sanctimonious ass about some things. Or it might have been.... He thought it was probably the minister of his father’s church; and he grinned with dry relish at the thought. The old man must have been sadly shocked at Wint more than once; and this letter sounded just like him. Blithering, self-righteous....
He lunged up from his chair, boiling furiously. All his determination to stick it out was gone. He would not do it, would not make a righteous spectacle of himself for the edification of these old women. He went out and turned up the street past the Court House, walking blindly, storming inwardly. He would get out of town, shake the dust of the place off his feet. Let them find a new Mayor.
He was still fuming thus when, in front of the Court House, he met Peter Gergue. Peter rummaged through his back hair and grinned at Wint. “Saw you coming,” he explained. “Thought you might be looking f’r me. So I came down.”
“I’m not looking for you,” said Wint.
Gergue nodded. “All right,” he assented. “Mind if I walk along with you? Going on this way?”
Wint halted in his tracks. “What’s up?” he asked sharply. “What do you want?”
“Me?” Peter ejaculated. “Why—me? I don’t want nothing.”
“What are you so anxious to keep an eye on me for, then? I don’t want you.”
Gergue hesitated, and he looked across the street toward his office; and at last he leaned toward Wint and said slyly: “Tell you th’ truth, it ain’t me. Amos is over at my place. He see you coming, and he was worried f’r fear you’d come up and find him there. He knows you’re mad at him. Don’t want to see you. Don’t want to listen to you. Knows you got a fair kick, and he don’t like to listen to kicks.”