“No, sir, never! They may molasses ye over at first, but it’s only to make ye easier to swaller. Own folks don’t do that. You know just where to find ’em, there’s that much about ’em. It’s goin’ to be a clean sale. Think of it--me a man that has been through it all from A to Z being held up by----” “Twenty can play it as well as one!” remarked the parrot. It was a hideous scowl that Hiram flashed up. “Not only trimmin’ me, but makin’ me run the risk of goin’ to court and havin’ it trailed out from Clew to Erie!” “It’s the old army game, gents!” the parrot squalled. His tone was nerve-racking. Hiram rose, yanked the bottom out of the cage, caught the squawking bird after considerable damage to a forefinger, wrung his neck, walked down to the road, and flung him far over the opposite stone wall. When he came back he caught the battered hat from the top of the lilac bush and sent it after the deceased Absalom. Then, sucking his bleeding finger at intervals, he went on writing his advertisement. CHAPTER XXII--HOW SYLVENA WILLARD “TRIED IT ON THE DOG,” WITH HAPPY RESULTS Dan’l and Dunk and the yaller dog Were owners and crew of the Pollywog, A hand-line smack that cuffed the seas, ’tween ’Tinicus Head and Point Quahaug. Dunk owned half and Dan owned half, and the yaller dog was also “joint”; They fished and ate And swapped their bait, And allus agreed on every point. --“Ballads of the Banks.” It did not surprise the people of Palermo when the word passed that Judge Collamore Willard had decided to retire from business. His callers had noticed his failing strength through the winter months, his unsteady gait, the tremulous wavering of his hands when he scrabbled among the papers on his table. They ascribed all this to the infirmities of age. Gossip that he had lost money, or that there was some basis for the sensational charges flung at him by Hiram Look, fell upon barren soil of belief in Palermo. Local confidence in the Willard fortunes and Willard integrity was too strong to be weakened thus. Old men, spinsters and widows came straggling in, after persistent drumming at them by the Squire, to receive the sums due them. The process of settlements covered many days, and the lawyer had need of all his patience. For old folks, even when the money was in their hands, stood by the Judge’s table and begged him to take it back. “Banks is failin’ and thieves is stealin’,” was their lament. “There ain’t nobody ever done so well by us as you, Judge. It won’t bother you none to take care of just this little. We won’t say nothin’ about your havin’ it.” At times like these the Judge turned a wistful gaze on the lawyer, and with something of appeal in his eyes. But he met; always the shake of the head and the tightening of the lips.