“Of course you know.”
It was maddening—this determination on the part of Levant to put me in the wrong in all matters of local disturbance. Here was I, victim of the resentment of the Skokums because I was trying to obey my promise to Celene Kingsley, now in imminent danger of further repute as the ringleader of the latest atrocity—even though I was the sole sufferer after the devil had been stirred up in the old loafer.
“You fired him, and the boomerang swung around back and hit you—that’s all,” insisted the constable. “His mouth has been full of something you have done to him. If it wasn’t you he wouldn’t be talking about you.”
While Dodovah Vose was finishing with my lacerated face I pondered on what he had said about my uncle’s indifference in regard to my popularity in town.
Then I stood up in the tavern foreroom and cursed family and foes and town with such lurid invective—my vocabulary and force being so far beyond the ordinary capabilities of youth—that even the crazy man was shocked into silence. I was ashamed of myself even as I ranted. But then, as in after-times, my temper swept me out of myself. I was blind and dizzy and there was a roar in my ears like the rush of water. I swung the fires of anger about myself as a juggler whirls his flaming torches. I was sorry as soon as it was over—I have always been sorry when my frenzy has passed.
When I bowed my head and walked out of the tavern I heard the constable clucking away like an offended old hen.
“It’s all a matter for the judge to consider—language and all,” he declared.
“But I insist that he is a good boy in his heart,” said Dodovah Vose.
“Can’t be—coming out of that family—and with the general reputation he has got since he has worked for his uncle the last four years,” insisted the constable. Fine dwelling-place for me—Levant, eh?
My uncle was in bed and asleep when I got to the house—and perhaps it was just as well, because I was quickly forgetting my shame and was ready for a further squabble; a disposition on my part which has never been especially helpful during my life.