Now Lamoury had no wounds to show. The smiling, well-dressed Paige, standing there and looking at him with amused comprehension, was more than he could bear. Pete suddenly lost his temper, never too secure. Out of his wheeled chair he jumped, and shaking his fist in Paige's face, he shouted:—
"T'ink you be smart, very smart mans! Well, Ah'll tol' you you ain't. Ah'll tol' you you be a great beeg peeg! Ah'll tol' you dat Edwards boy, he shoot at me. I see heem. 'T ain't my fault of it if he not hit me, hein? You be peeg! You be all peegs—every one!" and Pete, making a wide, inclusive gesture, shouted, "I care not more as one cent for de whole keet and caboodle of it! Peeg, peeg, peeg!"
And turning on his heel, the wrathful Frenchman left the room. He left also a convulsed jury and a wheeled chair, for the hire of which Hibbard found himself later obliged to pay.
Mr. Peaslee, the thermometer of whose spirits had been rising steadily, joined in the laughter which followed the exit of the discomfited Pete.
"Terrible smart feller, Paige, ain't he?" said he to Albion Small. "Did him up real slick, didn't he?" The delighted Solomon had quite forgotten his dislike for the citified Paige.
Of course the grand jury promptly abandoned the inquiry. The fact was now obvious that the vengeful Lamoury, aided by the unscrupulous Hibbard, had merely hoped to be bought off by Mr. Edwards, and had been disappointed.
"The case," said Paige, "would never have come to trial. If Edwards had persisted, and let his boy go to court, they'd have had to stop. They must have been a good deal disappointed when he refused bail; they probably thought he'd never let the boy pass a night in Hotel Calkins."
Mr. Peaslee walked home sobered but relieved. The loss of public esteem which had come to him through his foolish adventure, the serious wrong which he had inflicted upon Jim Edwards, the disgust of his wife were all things to chasten a man's spirit; but on the other hand, Jim was now out of jail, Lamoury had not been hurt in the least, and he himself had not been complained of or arrested. If he should have to endure some chaffing from Jim Bartlett and Si Spooner, his cronies at the bank, he "guessed he could stand it." On the whole, he was moderately happy.
The sun was low in the west, and the trees were casting long shadows across his yard, brightly spattered with the red and yellow of autumnal leaves. His house, white and neat and comfortable, seemed basking like some still, somnolent animal in the warm sunshine.