"They refer to the application for pardon of a poor man who's going to be hanged for murder to-morrow unless we do something for him; and he has a wife and three little children, and he has never committed any other crime but to break into a smoke-house and steal a side of bacon."
"Did he shoot in self-defense, or how was it?" asked Ardmore judicially.
"He killed a painless dentist who pulled the wrong tooth," answered Jerry, referring to the papers.
"If that's all I don't think we can stand for hanging him. I read a piece against capital punishment in a magazine once and the arguments were very strong. The killing of a dentist should not be a crime anyhow, and if you know how to pardon a man, why let's do it; but we'd better wait until the last minute, and then send telegram to the sheriff to stop the proceedings just before he pulls the string, which makes it most impressive, and gives a better effect."
"I believe you are right about it," said Jerry. "There's an old pardon right here in this bundle which we can use. It was made out for another man who stole a horse that afterwards died, which papa said was a mitigating circumstance; but the week before his execution the man escaped from jail before papa could pardon him."
"Suppose we don't let them hang anybody while we're running the state," suggested Ardmore; "it's almost as though you murdered a man yourself, and I couldn't tie my neckties afterwards without a guilty feeling. I can't imagine anything more disagreeable than to be hanged. I heard all of Tristan und Isolde once, and I have seen half an Ibsen play, and those were hard things to bear, but I suppose hanging would be just as painful and there would be no supper afterwards to cheer you up."
"You shouldn't speak in that tone of Afterwards, Mr. Ardmore," said Jerry severely. "It isn't religious. And while we're on the subject of religion, may I ask the really, truly wherefore of Miss Daisy Waters' sudden return to Newport?" and Jerry's tone and manner were carelessly demure.
"She went home," replied Ardmore, grinning; "she left Ardsley for two reasons, one of which she stated at the breakfast table and the other she handed me privately."
"She said at the breakfast table that she was called home by incipient whooping cough in the household of her brother-in-law's cousin's family."
"As she has no brother-in-law, that can not be true. What she said to me privately was that the house party had grown very much larger than Mrs. Atchison had originally planned it, and that I am so busy that so many guests must be a burden."