"Well, Backfield, I'm sorry about this young scapegrace of mine. But boys will be boys, you know, and we'll make it all right about that cow. I promise you it won't happen again."
"I'm sorry to have given you the trouble of coming here, Squire. But I thought maybe you and I cud come to an arrangement wudout calling in the police."
"Oh, certainly, certainly. You surely wouldn't think of doing that, Backfield. I promise you the full value of the cow."
"Quite so, Squire. But it äun't the cow as I'm vrothered about so much as these things always happening. This äun't the first 'rag,' as he calls it, wot he's had on my farm. I've complained to you before."
"I know you have, and I promise you nothing of this kind shall ever happen again."
"How am I to know that, Squire? You can't kip the young man in a prammylator. Now if he wur had up before the magistrate and sent to prison, it 'ud be a lesson as he'd never disremember."
"But think of me, Backfield! Think of his mother! Think of us all! It would be a ghastly thing for us. I promise to pay you the full value of the cow—and of your damaged self-respect into the bargain. Won't that content you?"
"Um," said Reuben—"it might."
The Squire thought he had detected Backfield's little game, and a relieved affability crept into his manner.