Bailey rose slowly and everybody listened in deep silence.
“I hold no note of any kind with Judge Kingsley’s name on it.”
“Yah-h-h! You have told me that before. But you don’t dare to stand here in town meeting and say it under oath.”
“Send down that Bible on the stand and I’ll take oath and kiss the Book,” offered Bailey. There was applause and the judge quieted it by raising his hand.
“I will pay double for any note with my name on it as treasurer, and I will turn the money over to the town as a gift,” he said.
I despised him when he made that bluff, though of course he had to do it. Really, in spite of his devilish temper and his spirit of revenge my uncle was twice the man Judge Kingsley was in that moment. I wasn’t trying to figure out the righteousness of the thing on either side; the judge was fighting for his very life, as well as his standing, and my uncle, though he was working for the good of the town according to his lights, was satisfying his old grudge—the real passion of his life.
A voter rose and bellowed until he secured silence; they were giving the judge an ovation.
“I want to put in a word here, fellow-townsmen! Money has been borrowed on town notes. A certain eminent man you all know tried to borrow from me and said I could escape taxation. And now he is backed by the liars—”
“And barked at by the liars, too,” yelled another man.
“I stand up here for Selectman Sidney, who has given his time and effort to help this town out of the clutches—”