"Coom een!" said the voice of the professor in the corridor. "Coom een! Clara iss not here now: den she must be someveres. Pe bleaced to sit vile I look. Anyhow, she vill soon return. Ach, Herr Cox, ve missed you creatly at our supper--eatings of reasons and sdreams of souls! Ach! Here iss our friendt te chutche, ant Herr Amidon--Brassfield, I mean!" Madame le Claire appeared in the archway. "Ah, Miss Scarlett," said she, "you are early. May I ask you to return, in----" "No!" It was the voice of Miss Scarlett which replied. "No, I'm not going! And if 'Gene Brassfield is in there, Billy Cox has something to say to him. Here, Mr. Alvord, you come in, too; he's out there hunting for 'Gene. Billy, do your duty now!" "Pardon me," said Mr. Cox, advancing into the next room, followed by Miss Scarlett. "Pardon me, Judge Blodgett, I have a few words for you and your client. Miss Scarlett has made me agree to apologize to Mr. Brassfield about that summons; and if 'Gene Brassfield thinks I owe him any apology for putting it on to him a little before his out-of-town friends, I'll make it. But here are the facts, and he knows it: for four years he's been rawhiding me at every chance with his practical jokes. He had me arrested and detained for a whole day on fake telegrams at Wilkesbarre, only last fall; and just before that he got everybody at the Springs to thinking I was Tascott, and induced a rural constable to take me into custody. Why, Alvord here in his worst estate hasn't been as bad as he's been. If he's lost any opportunity, I don't remember it; and, of course, I've got back once in a while, and may be about even. But everything has been good-natured and brotherly, as ought to be between members of the gang. _And_, of course, when the cannon-crackers began to go off that night, I knew he was doing it. I was over in Major Pumphrey's parlor, where Daisy had invited me, during the eruption, and I told her about these things, and wished for some way of getting even, and--and some one spoke of this breach of promise suit, and we--that is, I--got up the summons, and I told Ed Tootle to serve it on you at your orgy--you had no business to expect me to enter any free-for-all inebriates' competition--you know that, 'Gene! It may have been a little extreme as a joke; but if you'd laughed it off as you always do, nobody would have thought anything of it except to chaff you about it. But what do you do? You make as serious a thing of it as if you hadn't been trotting with our crowd for five years or so. You set this old--my learned friend from the West--briefing it up, and you make a fool of me. Worse than that, you place Daisy in a most objectionable position; and, by George, 'Gene, I claim the apology is due from you, to me and Daisy!"