“Godfrey ’Lisha,” he sighed thunderously, “but that takes a load offen my mind!”
And he ruminated.
“But what’s the use of my tryin’ to explain now? What’s the use––when they ain’t nothing to explain! It’s all come out all right, ain’t it? Well, then, hedn’t I jest as well save my breath?”
He straightened his thin shoulders and stretched his arms.
“It couldn’t a-been handled much neater, either,” that one-sided conversation went on, “not anyway you look at it. I always did think that the best thing to do in them matters was to kinda let ’em take their own course. And now––now I guess I’ll be gittin’ along down!”
Before he opened the door of the Tavern office a scant half hour later, Denny Bolton stopped there on the steps a moment and, his hand on the latch, listened to the thin, falsetto voice that came from within. A slow smile crept up and wrinkled the corners of the boy’s eyes after a while when he had caught the drift of those strident words.
They had been waiting for him––the regulars. They had been waiting for him longer than Old Jerry knew. In the chair that had been the throne-seat of the town’s great man the servant of the Gov’mint sat and faced his loyal circle.
He had reached his climax––had hammered it home. Now he was rounding out his conclusion for those who hung, hungry-eyed, upon his eloquence.