"Certainly I do."
"Excuse me, Squire Walker, but I don't."
The overseer stood aghast. Such a reply was little better than rebellion in one of the town's servants, and his blood boiled at such unheard-of plainness of speech to him, late representative to the general court, member of the school committee, one of the selectmen, and an overseer of the poor.
Besides, there was another reason why the temerity of the keeper was peculiarly aggravated. Jacob Wire was the squire's brother-in-law; and though the squire despised him quite as much and as heartily as the rest of the people of Redfield, it was not fitting that any of his connections should be assailed by another. It was not so much the fact, as the source from which it came, that was objectionable.
"How dare you speak to me in that manner, Mr. Nason?" exclaimed the squire. "Do you know who I am?"
Mr. Nason did know who he was, but at that moment, and under those circumstances, he so far forgot himself as to inform the important functionary that he didn't care who he was; Jacob Wire's was not a fit place for a heathen, much less a Christian.
"What do you mean, sir?" gasped the overseer in his rage.
"I mean just what I say, Squire Walker. Jacob Wire is the meanest man in the county. He half starves his wife and children; and no hired man ever stayed there more than a week—he always starved them out in that time."
"If you please, sir, I would rather not go to Mr. Wire's," put in Harry, to whom the county jail seemed a more preferable place.
"There, shut up! I say you shall go there!" replied the squire.