“Now, how foolish you be,” he said, in a confidential tone. “Can't you see that if you cave in now, after stan'n' out nine hours”—and he looked at a silver watch with a brass chain, and stroked his goatee—“nine hours and twenty-seven minutes—that you 've made jest rumpus enough so as't he won't dare to foreclose on you, for fear they 'll say you went back on a trade. On t' other hand, if you hold clear out, he'll turn you out-o'-doors to-morrow, for a blind, so 's to look as if there wa' n't no trade between you. Once he gits off, he won't know Joseph, you bet! That's what I 'd do,” he added, with a sly laugh. “Take your uncle's advice.”
“The only trouble with that,” said Eli, shortly, “is that I don't owe him anything.”
“Oh,” said the pedler; “that makes a difference. I understood you did.”
Three o'clock came, and brought Mr. El-dridge. He found Eli worn out with excitement.
“Now, I don't judge you the way the others do,” said Mr. Eldridge, in a low tone, with his hand on Eli's knee. “I know, as I told you, just the way you feel. But we can't help such things. Suppose, now, that I had kept dark, and allowed to the owners that that man was always sober, and I had heard, six months after, of thirty or forty men going to the bottom because the captain was a little off his base; and then to think of their wives and children at home. We have to do some hard things; but I say, do the square thing, and let her slide.”
“But I can't believe he 's guilty,” said Eli.
“But don't you allow,” said Mr. Eldridge, “that eleven men are more sure to hit it right than one man?”
“Yes,” said Eli, reluctantly, “as a general thing.”
“Well, there's always got to be some give to a jury, just as in everything else, and you ought to lay right down on the rest of us. It is n't as if we were at all squirmish. Now, you know that if you hold out, he 'll be tried again.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”