I felt like a man waiting for a woodchuck to come out of his hole—getting an occasional glimpse of a nose and seeing it everlastingly dodging back.
“But I had to have money quick. I had lost my grip. I could not raise more money in a regular way.”
“When I was in the city I heard swindlers talk about such men, sir. There are blacklegs who go about the country hunting for such men. Have you been swindled?”
“Foully—vilely!”
“How?”
He hooked his fingers inside his collar as if speech had stuck in his throat.
“Laugh!” he advised me. He was as hoarse as a crow and looked as crazy as a coot. “Go ahead and laugh! I may as well get used to the ridicule.”
“I don’t feel much like laughing at anything these days, Judge Kingsley. I wish that you could understand me better and know how sorry—”
“Yes, and you and everybody else will pity me as a fool to be classed in with the other fools who are gulled by the shell-and-pea game.”
“For the sake of Mike, what have you done?” I demanded with a bit of temper, for I was in no frame of mind to guess riddles.