"Say," he cried, with a sudden and studied return to his usual dour manner, "some of you boys seem to be saying one thing and—thinking another. Maybe you know something about this letter."
An instant denial leaped to everybody's lips, but Angus was playing his part too well for these country town-folk. He maintained his atmosphere of displeasure and suspicion, and finally the impulsive butcher cleared his throat.
"Pshaw!" he exclaimed nervously. "What's the use beatin' around? We're all good friends right here, an' we all feel that we owe Mr. Hendrie a mighty lot for what he's doing for this city. An', I guess, when there's things goin' on that don't seem right by him it's up to us to open our mouths. We don't know a thing about that letter, Mr. Moraine, but it just fits in with things we do know—all of us. We know that just as soon as Mr. Hendrie disappears from the farm some other feller appears, and his name's Frank Smith, and he mostly gets around riding and driving with Mrs. Hendrie. That's what we know."
The butcher's forehead was beaded with perspiration as he came to the end of his statement, but he stared defiantly round at the disapproving faces of his friends.
Angus fixed him with a stern eye.
"You surely do know a lot," he exclaimed, with angry sarcasm. "And I want to tell you that I know a lot—too. This is what I know. What you're saying is a damned scandal. Do you get me? A damned scandal," he reiterated. "And if I told Mr. Hendrie he'd have you all for criminal libel—or worse. Now, see here," he went on, after a dramatic pause, "I tell you plainly—if I ever hear another breath of the like of this yarn going around I'll see that Mr. Hendrie has you all lagged for a pack of libelous rascals who ought to be in penitentiary."
He finished up his angry denunciation by bringing his clenched fist down on the table bell with a force that brought Mr. Sharpe flying into the room on the dead run, and left the shamefaced townsmen glowering upon the flaming face of their unfortunate comrade.
But the sensations of the evening did not end here. Angus furnished them with another, even greater than those which had preceded it.
"Take the orders—again!" he cried, as though hurling a challenge, and daring any one to refuse his hospitality.
And such was the apprehension his manner inspired in the hearts of the gathered scandal-mongers, that all selection was reduced to a general call for whisky, that being the only refreshment their confused brains could think of under such a dreadful strain.