"The fishwomen and other superstitious people say, because their murderers have not been punished."
"And the murderers are—"
"Those who survived and profited by the murder, of course?"
"Jer-ri-choo-woo!" exploded Duff Salter. "Young man," he wrote deliberately, "you have an idle tongue."
"Friend Salter, you are blind as well as deaf. Do you know Miss Podge Byerly?"
"No. Do you?"
"She's common! Agnes Wilt uses her as a stool-pigeon. She fetches, and carries, and flies by night. One of the school directors shoved her on the public schools for intimate considerations. Perhaps you'll see him about the house if you look sharp and late some night."
"Jer-rich-co! Jericho!"
Duff Salter was decidedly red in the face, and his grave gray eyes looked both fierce and convicted. He had seen a school director visiting the house, but thought it natural enough that he should take a kind interest in one of the youthful and pretty teachers. The deaf man returned to his pencil and tablets.
"Do you know, Mr. Van de Lear, that what you are saying is indictable language? It would have exposed you to death where I have lived."