Juvenile Rumley knew him far better than its seniors. It had seen him fight on more than one occasion—which was more than grown-up Rumley had seen or even suspected—but so loyal is youth that not a word of his or any other boy’s fistic exploits ever reached the ears of the blissfully ignorant.
Messrs. Sikes and Link, having abandoned their original mission, were bent upon a new one. They were filled with a deep concern, and spoke but few words to each other in the course of the half-mile walk to the home of the Reverend Herbert Sage. Their reticence may have been due to the presence of little Jane Sage, who walked between them; or, it may have been due to the seriousness of their reflections. The statement that Jane walked between them is not an accurate one. It is true that Mr. Sikes held one of her hands while Mr. Link held the other, but her legs were short and theirs were long, and so there were times when her feet failed to touch the ground at all, or, in touching it, were sadly without sustained purpose.
Shortly before seven o’clock that evening, Oliver October, fearing the worst, remarked three well-known figures coming up the path to the Baxter house. He had just finished his supper and was on the point of departing for the home of Sammy Parr down the road for a few minutes’ play before darkness fell. Seeing the three visitors and sensing the nature of their descent upon the home of his father, he stole out the back way, and, even as a dog retreats with his tail between his legs, made tracks toward the barn and its friendly hayloft. Something told him that Sammy’s parents already had received a call from the dread Committee of Three and perhaps were even now making it hot for Sammy—in which case that bosom friend of his would be in no mood for play.
“Where’s Oliver October?” inquired Mr. Sikes of Mr. Baxter, who opened the door to admit his callers.
Mr. Baxter is scrawnier than he was at forty-five, which is saying something that challenges the credulity. He is still strong, and active, and wiry, but he is a thing of knobs and joints and wrinkles. The passing years seem deliberately to have neglected the rest of his person in a shameless endeavor to develop for him a prize Adam’s apple; it has become quite a fascinating though bewildering product, scarce what you would call an adornment and yet not without its own peculiar charm.
It is a shifting, unstable hump that appears to have no definite place of lodgment; no sooner does it settle into a momentary state of repose than something comes up—or down—to disturb its serenity and, in a charmed sort of way, you watch it resume its spasmodic titillations. It grips you. You can’t help wondering what it is going to do next. And as it happens to be placed in the scrawniest part of Mr. Baxter’s person—his neck—it is always visible. He makes a practice of removing his collar the instant he reaches home of an evening, a provision that affords great relief not only to himself but also to the vagrant protuberance.
Which accounts for his being quite collarless when he faced his three visitors. He blinked at them uneasily, for their faces were long and joyless.
“He was here a minute ago,” he replied. “Why?”
“Before we proceed any farther, Brother Baxter,” announced the Reverend Sage, “I wish to state that I do not agree with our friends here.”
“You never do agree with us,” said Mr. Link, but without a trace of resentment.