"No; rabbit. Rabbit's much more wholesome for Christmas than turkey. We sell turkeys to the city folks and feast on rabbits when we need them. I poached this one, too. But don't tell Mr. Montgomery. It ran under his fence into my pasture, and fearing it was my last chance for Christmas dinner, I pulled the trigger. Is that a high crime, Mr. Kirkwood?"
"Not at all. We'll assume that it was really your rabbit that had just been out for a stroll on Mr. Montgomery's side of the fence. I'll promise to get you off if you're prosecuted."
"I should think it would be quite grand and splendid to own a farm and go out and pick off game that way," said Phil musingly. "Monarch of all you survey, and that sort of thing. When I had a Flobert rifle in my enchanted youth and shot sparrows in our back yard, I had something of the same exalted feeling. Only our estate here is too limited. The neighbors kicked; so many wild shots. Absurd how sensitive people are. But I suppose if I hadn't broken a few glasses of new quince preserves the lady across our alley had put to sun in her kitchen window, I might never have lost the gun."
"I don't seem to remember that incident of your career, Phil," said Rose.
"I hope nobody does. The lady's husband happened to be the town marshal, and he told daddy a lot of sad things that were going to happen to me if I didn't stop shooting at his perfectly good wife as she followed her usual avocations."
The Bartletts were relieved to find Phil restored to something like her normal cheerful self. They all enlarged upon the impingement of her bullets upon the marshal's wife's quinces, discussing the subject in the mock-serious vein that was common in their intercourse. If Phil had killed her neighbor, would it have been proper for the defense to prove that the quinces were improperly prepared? Kirkwood insisted that such testimony would have been grossly irregular and that an able jurist like Judge Walters would certainly have rejected it. They played with the idea of Phil's heinous crime until they wore it out.
"Put on the black cap and tell me when I'm to die," said Phil. "I'm guilty. I really did kill the woman and I buried her under the plum tree in her back yard. Now let's think of something cheerful."
Nan and Kirkwood dropped out of the circle a little later, and Phil heard them talking in subdued tones in the library. Rose withdrew to the window and became absorbed in a book.
"I saw you and Charlie that day you climbed up the bluff," said Fred the moment Rose was out of hearing. "I hope you won't do that any more. I hope you won't ever do things like that again!" he ended earnestly.
"It was just a lark; why shouldn't I do it?"