“Now you look here, sir, if you’ll ask me questions that a gentleman ought to ask, I’ll answer you like a gentleman, but I’ll never answer such questions as that!”
There was a certain polite deference in Joe’s voice, which he felt that he owed, perhaps, to the office that the man represented, but there was a firmness above it all that was unmistakable.
“You refuse to answer any more questions, then?” said the coroner slowly, and with a significance that was almost sinister.
“I’ll answer any proper questions you care to ask me,” answered Joe.
“Very well, then. You say that you and Isom quarreled last night?”
“Yes, sir; we had a little spat.”
“A little spat,” repeated the coroner, looking around the room as if to ask the people on whose votes he depended for reelection what they thought of a “little spat” which ended in a man’s death. There was a sort of broad humor about it which appealed to the blunt rural sense. A grin ran over their faces like a spreading wavelet on a pool. “Well now, what was the beginning of that ‘little spat’?”
“Oh, what’s that got to do with it?” asked Joe impatiently. “You asked me that before.”
“And I’m asking you again. What was that quarrel over?” 145
“None of your business!” said Joe hotly, caring nothing for consequences.