"'Down t' the village,' I says.
"'What you ben up to down there?' he says.
"'Went to the cirkis,' I says, thinkin' I might 's well make a clean breast on't.
"'Where 'd you git the money?' he says.
"'Mr. Cullom took me,' I says.
"'You lie,' he says. 'You stole the money somewheres, an' I'll trounce it out of ye, if I kill ye,' he says.
"Wa'al," said David, twisting his shoulders in recollection, "I won't harrer up your feelin's. 'S I told you, he done his best. I was willin' to quit long 'fore he was. Fact was, he overdone it a little, an' he had to throw water in my face 'fore he got through; an' he done that as thorough as the other thing. I was somethin' like a chickin jest out o' the cistern. I crawled off to bed the best I could, but I didn't lay on my back fer a good spell, I c'n tell ye."
"You poor little critter," exclaimed Mrs. Cullom sympathetically. "You poor little critter!"
"'T was more'n wuth it, Mis' Cullom," said David emphatically. "I'd had the most enjoy'ble day, I might say the only enjoy'ble day, 't I'd ever had in my hull life, an' I hain't never fergot it. I got over the lickin' in course of time, but I've ben enjoyin' that cirkis fer forty year. The' wa'n't but one thing to hender, an' that's this, that I hain't never ben able to remember—an' to this day I lay awake nights tryin' to—that I said 'Thank ye' to Billy P., an' I never seen him after that day."
"How's that?" asked Mrs. Cullom.