“Goin’ to throw it away?”
“Why?”
“’Tain’t correct.”
“How is it wrong?”
“Don’t give woman as a synonym for lunatic,” he said, and disappeared abruptly.
CHAPTER XII
DEPUTY JENNEY, with a crumpled copy of the Free Press in his hand, rushed into Abner Fownes’s office—for once omitting the formality of rapping on the door. He threw the paper upon the desk and stood huge, bristling, speechless.
“What’s this?... What’s this?” Abner demanded, sharply.
“Read it. Read it and see.... Hell’s busted loose in the henhouse.”
Abner smoothed out the paper and read. His face did not change, but his little eyes glowed dully, with a light not pleasant to see, one that suggested pent-up heat, a compression of scorching, searing forces capable of awful explosion. He read the story of the finding of the whisky cache from beginning to end; then reread it, missing no word, no suggestion. Jenney directed him to the editorial page with its conjectures and comment. For some moments he did not speak, but stared at his desk top with those dull-glowing eyes until one might have expected to see wisps of smoke arising from the spot they touched.