“He was a short man,” Tom replied, “kind o’ slim, an’ he didn’t have any whiskers”—a sudden thought seemed to strike the boy, and looking for a moment earnestly at Carolan, and then pointing his finger at him, he exclaimed,—
“Why, he looked just like—just like him!”
Carolan smiled grimly, but Pleadwell laughed aloud.
“Well, Tom,” he said, “we shall not ask you to tell whom he looks like, but if I should require your presence at the trial, and should call you to the witness-stand, you would have no objection, I presume, to giving a description of the man you saw pass by you in the shadow of the breaker, just as you have described him to me?”
“No,” replied Tom, “not so long as it’s true.”
“Oh, I should expect you to say nothing that is not strictly true,” said Pleadwell. “I would not allow a witness of mine to tell a lie. Well, then, you are to be in the court-room here a week from next Tuesday morning at nine o’clock. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Carolan, put Thomas Taylor’s name on that subpœna. You will consider yourself subpœnaed, Tom. Now,” taking a heavy gold watch from his fob-pocket and glancing at it, “you will have just time to catch the train north.” Then stepping to the door between the two rooms, and throwing it open, he said, “Harris, go to the station with this boy, buy his ticket, and see that he gets the right train.”
Harris was the young man who came down with Tom, and he and the boy were soon on the street together, walking briskly toward the station.
An hour earlier, when they were coming in, Tom had been very talkative and inquiring, but now his companion was able to get from him no more than a simple “yes” or “no,” and that only in answer to questions.