the pair of us rocked back and forth and haw-hawed like loons.

"Oh, dear me!" says Jim Henry, wipin’ his eyes. "The original Pendlebury hung for hog stealin’!"

"Stealin’ it on Sunday," says I. "Don’t forget that. Sabbath-breakin’ was worse than thievin’ in them days."

"Well, go on, go on," says he. "There’s more of it, ain’t they?"

There was. The writing got finer and finer as it got close to the bottom of the page. Poor Pullet had caved in when that revelation struck him. Honor compelled him to tell Letitia the truth and how could he tell her such a truth as that? She, so proud and all. He had led her into this dreadful research work and she would blame him, of course, and dismiss him with scorn and contempt. Her contempt he could not bear. No, he must go away. He could never face her again. He was goin’ to Boston, to his cousin’s house in Newton, and stay there for a spell. Perhaps some day, after she had shut up her summer villa and gone, too, he might return; he didn’t know. But would we forgive him, etcetery and so forth, and—good-by.

His name was squeezed in the very corner. I looked at Jacobs.

"Well," I says, some disgusted, "it looks to me, as a man up a tree—not a family tree, neither, thank the Lord—as if instead of cinchin’ the Pendlebury trade your ’advice’ had queered it forever."

He didn’t say nothin’. Just scowled and kicked his heels together. Then he grabbed the letter out of my hand and begun to read it again. I scowled, too, and set starin’ at the floor and thinkin’. All at once I heard him swear, a sort of joyful swear-word, seemed to me. I looked up. As I did he swung off the counter, crumpled up the letter, jammed it in his pocket and grabbed up his hat.

"Skipper," he says, his eyes shinin’, "there’s a night freight to Boston, ain’t there?"

"Yes, there is, but—"

"So long, then. I’ll be back soon’s I can. You and Bill"—that was the clerk—"must do as well as you can for a day or so. So long. But you just remember this: Old Doctor James Henry Jacobs, specialist in sick businesses, ain’t given up hopes of this patient yet, not by any manner of means. By, by."

He was gone afore I could say another word, and for the rest of that night and all day Sunday and until Monday evenin’s train come in, I was like a feller walkin’ 

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