“Who’s this talking? I object, Squire. He was not asked here!” shouted Varney.
“Oh, it is all right,” rejoined Squire Tuck, his tone and manner quieting and assuring. “Let the young man speak. You know, Squire Varney, it wouldn’t look well to shut him up. He may have something valuable to say, and truth will always stand criticism.”
Amid grunting by Varney and head–shaking by Baggs, Walter proceeded: “I wanted to call attention to this note. I saw it the first morning I was here, and I know it was that by that blot which it seemed to me looked like a pig.”
“Pig!” ejaculated Varney, with a sneer. “Some folks see themselves in everything they look at.”
“Ha—ha!” roared Baggs.
“Let the young man proceed,” calmly remarked Squire Tuck.
Walter was not used to encounters of this kind, and he felt as if a head–wind had struck him. He recovered himself, though, and began to speak again.
A saucy answer was on the end of his tongue, but he remembered something his father said once, that in a discussion the man more likely to come out ahead is the man who can control his tongue as well as use it. He held to his point like a vessel to its course and said, “I saw something on that note which it may be wished I had not seen. The words ‘five hundred’ were then on it, not ‘fifteen hundred,’ and—and—that ‘fifteen’ to me has a scratched look.”
Everything was in intense confusion. Uncle Boardman jumped upon his feet, crying, “Let me see! I lost one note and gave another.” Varney shouted, advancing towards Walter, “Do you mean to say that my client is a forger? that Bezaleel Baggs is guilty of scratching notes?”
Walter had no opportunity to reply, for a woman’s sharp voice piped forth, “Well, I mean to say that Beelzebub is equal to scratchin’ notes.”