“Poor old George!” he said in rough sympathy. “To-morrow morning winds him up, doesn’t it? By cripes, if the old town was what it used to be, they’d have to call out the soldiers before they could hang him!”
But Jarvis would not speak of Brant.
“Tell me once more, Tom, about that fellow who was running with the Professor—about how he looked, I mean.”
“Still a-twanging on that old string?” laughed the bartender. “I have told you till I can’t remember how he looked myself.”
“Never mind; dig it over once more,” begged Jarvis “It’s the last time I’ll ever bother you about him.” And thus besought, Deverney racked his memory and described the unknown man for the twentieth time.
“Old clothes—always the same old clothes,” Jarvis groaned in despair. “Didn’t he ever change them, I wonder?”
“Not that anybody ever saw or heard of. I—” The bartender stopped short and knitted his brows till they met above his eyes. “Say, I told you he was in here to get a drink the night of the killing, didn’t I?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he’d changed ’em that night, for once—gone into mourning. I recollect, because I joshed him about the misfit; asked him which one of his uncles had died and left him the blacks.”
“What!”