you've been actin' like a fool, but I guess I got to do it.

   "This was the way on 't: I stepped over to Ed'ards's jest to talk over matters and things. Well, I couldn't seem to raise anybody to the front of the house, so I kinder slid into the boy's room to see if there wasn't somebody out back. There wa'n't. There didn't seem to be anybody to home.

   "Now, gentlemen, seems as though you'd see how 't was when I tell ye. There's an old white and yaller cat, with a kinder sassy patch over her eye,"—Mr. Peaslee's meek voice here took on

   a trace of heat,—"that's been a-pesterin' the life out o' me goin' on a year. I guess ye know how 't is—one of them pesky, yowlin', chicken-stealin', rusty old nuisances that hain't any sociability to 'em, anyhow.

   "Well, there she was a-settin', comfortable as a hot punkin pie, and lookin' as if she owned the place. And there was the boy's gun right there handy. The cat riled me so, I jest loaded her up. 'T wa'n't in human natur' not to, now was it? 'T wa'n't nothin' but bird shot, so I sorter stuck in a marble. It couldn't do no harm,

   and it might kinder help a leetle. And I just fired her off. I didn't expect to hit any French Canadian; I didn't know there was any of the critters round.

   "Then when I see a feller fall out of the bushes I was scared, now I tell ye. Here I was, member of the grand jury, and everything, and it didn't somehow seem right and fittin' for no member of the grand jury to be fillin' up a feller human bein' with bird shot an' marbles. I guess I didn't think much what I was a-doin' of, no-how. 'T any rate, I jest sneaked off home, and then I jest let things

   slip along and slide along till here I be. I guess if a true bill's got to be found agin any one, it's got to be found agin me."

   And Mr. Peaslee sank huddled and hopeless into his chair.

   His fellow members were for a moment silent. But soon this tale of a cat, bird shot, and an unexpected Canadian began to disclose a comic aspect; the plight of poor, respectable Mr. Peaslee, in all the fresh honors of his jurorship, began to show a ludicrous side; their own position as grave men seeing what they thought a serious offense change, as by magic, into a

   farcical accident, bit by bit revealed its humor.

   

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