"Sorry," I said. "Have to have a written order from Mr. Pierce."
He put a silver dollar on the desk between us and looked at me over it.
"Will that open the case?" he asked. But I shook my head.
"Well, I'll be hanged! What the devil sort of order did he give you?"
"He said," I repeated, "that I'd be coaxed and probably bribed to open the cigar case, and that you'd probably be the first one to do it, but I was to stick firm; you've been smoking too much, and your nerves are going."
"Insolent young puppy!" he exclaimed angrily, and stamped away.
So that I was not surprised when on that night, Friday, I was told to be at the shelter-house at ten o'clock for a protest meeting. Mrs. Sam told me.
"Something has to be done," she said. "I don't intend to stand much more. Nobody has the right to say when I shall eat or what. If I want to eat fried shoe leather, that's my affair."
We met at ten o'clock at the shelter-house, everybody having gone to bed—Miss Patty, the Van Alstynes and myself. The Dickys were on good terms again, for a wonder, and when we went in they were in front of the fire, she on a box and he at her feet, with his head buried in her lap. He didn't even look up when we entered.
"They're here, Dicky," she said.