Hiram fumbled at the package a moment and then banged it down on the platform, his face working with emotion whose nature was not easily to be determined.
“Just one moment, Hiram, before you reproach me,” said the Squire hastily. “Wait! Not a word’ from you now! I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity and be honest with you. You were right that day in town meeting, brother. If in everything in this world we must hew to the line of justice, you were right that day. But I tell you, Hiram, you and I both have seen that it isn’t always safe to hew to the line. I stood there fighting for the financial peace and confidence of our little town, but most of all for the woman I love, and when you got in the way I struck you. That’s the truth of it, brother. And I’m afraid I’d do it again, Hiram, for you can’t expect the perfect man to come out of the Look family. The only thing I can promise you, brother, is to be honest with you, and I am that—square with you through thick and thin, and I will always be that. But you have got to keep your hands off my treasures—-and you know what they are!”
He held out his open palm and smiled.
“Can’t you take my hand on that, brother Hiram?”
“I’ve got just a little favour to ask of you, Phin,” said Hiram, his hands still at his side. “I want you to leave me here on this porch ten minutes so that I can get fit to grip your hand. I can do a good deal of helpful thinkin’ in ten minutes, Phin. And when I come ’round the corner of that house, boy, it will be the differentest man you ever see. And I want you to put out your hand and shake just as if I was home for the first time after all those years—and I guess that’s the fact of the case, brother.”
When the Squire, with head bowed and with a smile on his lips, reached the corner of the house Hiram hailed him. There was such a queer note in his brother’s voice that the lawyer whirled in some astonishment.
Hiram stood, the points of his long moustache tightly gripped in one hand under his chin, as though he were trying to pull down the corners of his lips that were spreading into a broader and rather foolish smile.
“I just wanted to warn you, Phin,” he chuckled, “that I’ve got a little something in the way of—of—-well, as you said, ‘treasures’ to talk about.”
“Treasures!” repeated the lawyer, wonderingly.
“Well, that’s what she is!” blurted Hiram. “And you don’t ever have to apologise for what you did to me. I know how it is. I’ve got a critter to walk over in the same way.” And with this enigmatic statement he waved a hand at his brother and went back to his chair.