“And I wouldn’t have squealed a bit,” Gorgas crooned. “I’d have trotted right along—in the lead, too. I bet he doesn’t know the shortest cut to the parsonage.”
“June 21,” the next letter began.
“That was the Wednesday afternoon he first came to the house,” she commented.
“Dear Gorgas Levering: Psychological facts are accumulating.
“Fact No. 1: I am still a criminal-at-large and more dangerous than ever.
“Fact No. 2: I slipped back five years this afternoon and became eighteen. The proof is we both had a gallumptious time mimicking the neighborhood and acted like a pair of school children. Further proof is that you continually did make eyes at me, and, in spite of all the roaring protestations of something that’s left of my conscience, my own did slip several times. They really did slip: they slid nearer and nearer; from your chin they drew up to the tip of your nose; clambered up, up, slowly, overran the mark, and perched perilously on the right eyebrow; leaned over for a dizzy second and—slipped into untold brown fathoms. Once I was nearly drowned. It was the most terrifying sensation of my young manhood.
“Fact No. 3: I was mortally ashamed—put that down to my credit (you were not, you rogue!) and resolved never to do it again. The Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this law.
“Fact No. 4: That gypsy scamp scares me into trembles. When you told me of him I had murder in my heart, then and there; all the fierce primitive desire to meet that beast and beat him into pulp. My voice shook so when I asked you about him that I was certain you noticed it. My nesting instincts are coming with a rush—and they are most terrifying.
“Fact No. 5: In daylight I admit none of these things. I am very moral and civilized in daylight. Only at night when I sit before this white paper does my inward, honest self come to the fore and disport his naked savagery.
“Fact No. 6: The two ‘me’s’ are fighting each other; daylight against darkness. Daylight is going to win, or it’s all over with Allen Blynn (see the state your rhyming’s put me in!)