"Jimmy wasn't workin' at the mill that year," raps back the old man. "He was tongin' oysters that fall, 'cause he didn't hear a word about Hen until the next Friday night, when I told him myself. Hen was killed on a Monday." "It was on a Saturday or I'm a lunatic," snaps the old lady. Well, they kept on pilin' up evidence, each one makin' the other out to be a fool, or a liar, or both, until the old man says: "See here, Maria, I'm goin' up the street and ask Ase Horner when it was that Hen Dorsett was killed. Ase knows, for he was the one Mrs. Dorsett got to go up after Hen." "Yes, and he'll tell you it was just before Thanksgivin' of '85, so what's the use?" says the old lady. "We'll see what he says," growls the old man, and I heard him strike a light and get into his shoes. "Who're you bettin' on?" says Leonidas. "Gee!" says I. "Are you awake, too? I thought you was asleep an hour ago." "I was," says he, "but when this Hen Dorsett debate breaks loose I came back to earth. I'll gamble that the old woman's right." "The old man's mighty positive," says I. "Wonder how long it'll be before we get the returns?" "Perhaps half an hour," says Leonidas. "He'll have to thrash it all out with Ase before he starts back. We might as well sit up and wait. Anyway I want to see which gets the best of it." "Let's have a smoke, then," says I. "Why not go along with the old man?" says Leonidas. "If he finds he's wrong he may come back and lie about it." Well, it _was_ a fool thing to do, when you think about it, but somehow Leonidas had a way of lookin' at things that was different from other folks. He didn't know any more about that there Hen Dorsett than I did, but he seemed just as keen as if it was all in the family. We had hustled our clothes on and was sneakin' down the front stairs as easy as we could when we hears from Homer. "I heard you dressing," says he, "so I got up, too. I haven't been asleep yet." "Then come along with us," says Leonidas. "It'll do you good. We're only going up the street to find out when it was that the cars struck Hen Dorsett." Homer didn't savvy, but he didn't care. Mainly he wanted comp'ny. He whispered to us to go easy, suspectin' that if we woke up Mother Bickell she'd want to feed him some more clam fritters. By the time we'd unlocked the front door though, she was after us, but all she wanted was to make Homer wrap a shawl around his head to keep out the night air. "And don't you dare take it off until you get back," says she. Homer was glad to get away so easy and said he wouldn't. But he was a sight, lookin' like a Turk with a sore throat.