They were silent a moment and Marriott, unconsciously, and with something of the habit of the family solicitor, put the summons into his pocket.
"Vell, I bet dere be no delays in dis case, huh?" Koerner asked.
Marriott wondered if it were possible to make this old man understand.
"You see, Mr. Koerner," he began, "the law--"
The old German reared before him in mighty rage, and he roared out from his tremendous throat:
"Oh, go to hell mit your Gott-tamned law!"
And he slammed the door in Marriott's face.
Koerner was right; there were no delays now, no questions of proximate cause, no more, indeed, than there had been in Archie's case. The law worked unerringly, remorselessly and swiftly; the Legal Bulletin marked the steps day by day, judgment by default--decree--order of sale. There came a day when the sheriff's deputies--there were two of them now, knowing old man Koerner--went to the little cottage in Bolt Street. Standing on the little stoop, one of them, holding a paper in his hand, rapped on the door. There was no answer, and he rapped again. Still no answer. He beat with his gloved knuckles; he kicked lightly with his boot; still no answer. The deputies went about the house trying to peep in at the windows. The blinds were down; they tried both doors, front and back; they were locked.
In a neighbor's yard a little girl looked on with the crude curiosity of a child. After the man had tried the house all about, and rightly imagining from all that was said of the Koerners in the neighborhood that the law was about to indulge in some new and sensational ribaldry with them, she called out in a shrill, important voice:
"They're in there, Mister!"