"Golly," he laughed, "we'd catch it, wouldn't we—me and you—if Aunt Judith knew!"
Then he glanced at Stump and said nothing at all. And quite suddenly conscience told Abner Sawyer that he could not accept without giving. Jimsy had helped him willingly and he had accepted—why he could not for the life of him remember, save that it had something to do with his throat and his poise. It did entail obligation of a sort, however, and he was a just man. Abner Sawyer did not look at Stump. He blew out the light.
In silence the two passed out and closed the door. The episodic irregularities of the evening beginning with the Lindon Evening News had reached unheard of climax. A mongrel dog was asleep in the warmth of the sanctum.
Abner Sawyer had a strangling sense of another link to his biscuit-riven chain and passed his hand over his forehead in a dazed and weary way.
"Abner," said Aunt Judith nervously at breakfast, "you—you don't think this once we—could have—a—a Christmas tree for Jimsy?"
"Certainly not!" said Mr. Sawyer coldly.
Aunt Judith's hand trembled a little as she poured the coffee and the first citizen waited so long for her usual reply that he thought impatiently it would never come. It came at last—quietly.
"Just as you—say, Abner." But the final word was lost in an outraged yell from somewhere near the woodpile.