“You’ll be some place beside at a town meeting, Sheriff, if that girl is allowed to run around another twenty-four hours.... Git!”
Jenney went out slowly, much perturbed. He was a man of consequence to-day. Yesterday he had been nobody but Deputy Jenney, a political henchman, a nobody. To-day his life’s ambition was realized; he bestrode the pinnacle of his hopes. He had achieved the position toward which he had labored and schemed for a dozen years. What happened to Deputy Jenney was more or less inconsequential. As Deputy Jenney he dared take chances—for money or for advancement. But as Sheriff Jenney!... That was a different matter. Very gladly, now, would he have extricated himself from his entanglements and conducted himself as, according to his system of ethics, a man of mark should do. Why, he was the biggest man in the county—with a salary and fees and patronage!... Well, he was in it and he must protect himself.... Damn Fownes, anyhow.
He did not pause to consider that without Fownes and his connection with the whisky-smuggling industry he would never have become sheriff.... That was forgotten. Like many men, he ignored the ladder by which he had climbed. In this case, however, the ladder declined to ignore him. If Jenney had ever heard the word sardonic he would have made telling use of it now.... How many men are trammeled by inadequate vocabularies!
His first step was cautiously to call Peewee Bangs by telephone, and in his conversation Jenney disclosed a kind of apt and helpful humor of which few would have accused him.
“Hello, Peewee!” he said. “That you?”
“It’s me, Sheriff.”
“H’m!... Got that bundle of school books safe?” Jenney chuckled a little at this. He considered it very acute indeed—to describe Evan Pell as a bundle of school books.
“Got ’em tight,” said Peewee. “And the bookcase door’s locked. Was jest lookin’ ’em over. Gittin’ me an eddication, so to say.”
“Was the bindin’s injured much?”
“Not to speak of. One of the covers was tore off, but it kin be patched on ag’in with glue, seems as though. Hain’t no pages tore.”