"If you do feel I'm to blame, you'll just have to get somebody else to do your work. I wouldn't stay in no situation an' be regarded as—"
"I ain't blamin' you a mite, May Ellen," Elisha hurriedly broke in, panic-stricken lest his domestic tranquillity trembling so delicately on the brink of cataclysm topple into the void and be swallowed up. "As you say, the doin's of others are somethin' we can't take on our shoulders. Thank you for helpin' me hunt up these things."
As he spoke, he dubiously eyed the muddy objects in his hand. Well, at least, thought he, everything was not lost. He had gained time.
To wear his badge until a new pin was soddered to it was out of the question. In addition, the handcuffs were of no use at all unless a key could be found to unlock them.
He felt like a doomed man who had been granted an unlooked-for reprieve.
Eleazer would be nettled.
When he came steaming back with the revolver he would storm and rage like a bluefish in a net.
Nevertheless, accidents were unavoidable and in the meantime, while the emblems of the law were being repaired, who could tell what might happen?
Stanley Heath might escape and take the jewels with him—escape to some other part of the world and pass on to a larger and more competent party of criminal investigators the unenviable task of arresting him.