The obvious inconsistency of this pronouncement caused Ardmore to frown in the stress of his thought; and he stared helplessly along the line of the accusing paper-cutter into Jerry’s eyes.
“Oh, cheer up!” she cried in her despair of him; “and forget it, forget it, forget it! I’ll say this to you, Mr. Ardmore, that if I ever winked at you—and I never, never did—I’m sorry I did it! Some time when you haven’t so much work on your hands as you have this morning just think that over and let me know where you land. And now, look at these things, please.”
“What is all this stuff?” he demanded, as she tossed him a pile of papers.
“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-defence, 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 a 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’s sudden return to Newport?” and Jerry’s tone and manner were carelessly demure.