"I felt afraid I had been too hasty with her, and I was rather sorry I had been so decided--although, to be sure, she didn't pretend to deny that she had been communicating." "Of course," said the butcher: "no use lyin' when you're caught in the act." "Well, after school, she stayed at her desk, fixing her dinner-pail, and putting her books in a strap, and all that, till all the rest had gone, and then she came up to my desk, where I was correcting compositions." "Now for music!" said the butcher. "She had been crying a little. Well, she looked straight in my face, and said she, 'Mr. Pollard, I just wanted to say to you that I wasn't doing anything at all when you called me up;' and off she went. Now, that was just like her--too proud to say a word before the school." But here his listener's attention was diverted by the voice of the book-agent: "The very best Bible for teachers, of course, is the limp-cover, protected edges, full Levant morocco, Oxford, silk-sewed, kid-lined, Bishop's Divinity Circuit, with concordance, maps of the Holy Land, weights, measures, and money-tables of the Jews. Nothing like having a really----" "And so," said the captain, moving back his chair, "they let on the whole head of water, and scour out the channel to a T." And then he rapped upon the table. "Gentlemen," he said, "please draw your chairs up, and let us take another ballot." The count resulted as before. The foreman muttered something which had a scriptural sound. In a few moments, he drew Mr. Eldridge and two others aside. "Gentlemen," he said to them, "I shall quietly divide the jury into watches, under your charge: ten can sleep, while one wakes to keep Mr. Smith discussing the question. I don't propose to have the night wasted." And, by one man or another, Eli was kept awake. * * * * * "I don't see," said the book-agent, "why you should feel obliged to stick it out any longer. Of course, you are under obligations. But you've done more than enough already, so as that he can't complain of you, and if you give in now, everybody'll give you credit for trying to save your friend, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, for giving in to the evidence. So you'll get credit both ways." An hour later, the tin-peddler came on duty. He had not followed closely the story about John Wood's loan, and had got it a little awry.