And now the man was again explaining himself. He wanted to assert his manhood. “I stay up here,” he explained, “and don’t go down there, to sleep in the room with my wife because I don’t want to. That’s the only reason. I could if I wanted to. She has the bronchitis—but don’t tell anyone. Women hate to have anyone told. She isn’t so bad. I can do what I please.” He kept urging Will to put the cornet to his lips and blow. There was in him an intense eagerness. “You can’t really make any music—you don’t know how—but that don’t make any difference,” he said. “The thing to do is to make a noise, make a deuce of a racket, blow like the devil.” Again Will felt like crying but the sense of vastness and loneliness, that had been in him since he got aboard the train that night at Bidwell, had gone. “Well, I can’t go on forever being a baby. Kate has a right to get married,” he thought, putting the cornet to his lips. He blew two or three notes, softly. “No, I tell you, no! That isn’t the way! Blow on it! Don’t be afraid! I tell you I want you to do it. Make a deuce of a racket! I tell you what, I own this house. We don’t need to be afraid. We can do what we please. Go ahead! Make a deuce of a racket!” the old man kept pleading. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE MAN’S STORY ------------------------------------------------------------------------ THE MAN’S STORY DURING his trial for murder and later, after he had been cleared through the confession of that queer little bald chap with the nervous hands, I watched him, fascinated by his continued effort to make something understood. He was persistently interested in something, having nothing to do with the charge that he had murdered the woman. The matter of whether or not, and by due process of law, he was to be convicted of murder and hanged by the neck until he was dead didn’t seem to interest him. The law was something outside his life and he declined to have anything to do with the killing as one might decline a cigarette. “I thank you, I am not smoking at present. I made a bet with a fellow that I could go along without smoking cigarettes for a month.” That is the sort of thing I mean. It was puzzling. Really, had he been guilty and trying to save his neck he couldn’t have taken a better line. You see, at first, everyone thought he had done the killing; we were all convinced of it, and then, just because of that magnificent air of indifference, everyone began wanting to save him. When news came of the confession of the crazy little stage-hand everyone broke out into cheers.