“Yes,”said I, “we came in last evening and spent the night in Tom Connor’s house.”
Yetmore started and turned pale.
“In Tom Connor’s house?”he repeated, huskily.
“Yes,”I replied. “We were asleep in his back room when that explosion woke us up.”
At this Yetmore stared at me for a moment, and then, as he realized how narrowly he had missed being party to a murder, he turned a dreadful white color, staggered, and I believe might have fallen had he not sat himself down quickly upon a sack of potatoes.
A draft of water soon brought back his color, when, addressing the sympathizing crowd, Yetmore said:
“It made me feel a bit sick to think what chances these boys ran last night. Every one knows how hard it is to tell those houses apart; and that fellow might easily have made a mistake and blown up Tom Connor’s house on one side or Hughy Hughes’ on the other.”
“Yes,”said I; “and all the more so as Joe and I last evening put a second window into Tom’s house, so that any one coming across lots after dark might just as well have taken Tom’s house for old Snyder’s.”
“Phew!”whistled one of the men in the crowd. “Then it’s Hughy Hughes that’s to be congratulated. If that rascal had made such a mistake, and had chosen the second house from Tom’s instead of the second house from Snyder’s we’d have been making arrangements for six funerals about now. Hughy has four children, hasn’t he?”
I could not help feeling sorry for Yetmore. Convinced as I was that he had at least connived in a plot to destroy Tom’s house, I felt sure that he had been far from intending personal injury to any one; and I felt sure, too, that he was thoroughly sincere, when, rising from his seat and addressing the assemblage, he said: