“Why, it’s Carter,” he said, “John Carter. How are you, Carter, old fellow? It does me good to set eyes on an old friend.”
Carter was unprepared for this cordial welcome, and when Jake Amsden approached with hand extended, he put his own behind his back.
“I can’t take your hand, Jake,” he said. “You’ve done me too much harm.”
“Oh, you mean that old affair,” said Jake in an airy tone. “I did act meanly, that’s a fact, but we’re both older now. Let bygones be bygones. It’s all over now.”
“It isn’t all over. That false accusation of yours has blighted my life. It has driven me from factory to factory, and finally driven me out here in the hope that I might begin a new life where it would no longer be in my way.”
“I’m sorry for that, Carter,” said Jake Amsden. “’Pon my soul, I am. I know it was a mean trick I played upon you, but it was either you or I.”
“And you ruined this man’s reputation to save your own?” said Noel Brooke sternly.
“I didn’t think much about it, squire, I really didn’t,” said Jake. “You see I run in a hole, and I was ready to do anything to get out.”
“It was the act of a scoundrel, Amsden. There is only one thing to do.”
“What is it? Take another lickin’?”