“Will ye purtend to deny—”

“Did I scheme and plot with Cyrus the Gaunt and young Stacey?”

MacLachan mumbled something about undue influence.

“Did I get arrested?”

MacLachan grunted.

“In a cellar?”

MacLachan snorted.

“With my nose painted green?”

MacLachan groaned. “There was others,” he pleaded.

“A man of your age and influence in Our Square,” I interrupted sternly, “should have been dissuading them.”