I fixed my curious gaze upon his rigid features. I knew instinctively that his earnest solemnity was assumed; I knew by experience that nothing was so effective in baffling any attempt to play off as a steady concentrated stare. His eyes drooped slightly; he studied the names on the drawers of the spice-cabinet attentively; too attentively. "William," I said, with deliberate, unbending determination, "I have avoided asking you embarrassing questions, but I must know the truth about this semaphore business before I decide whether to engage you or not. What prompted you to dig out my gate?" I saw a faint flicker of almost contemptuous amusement in his face. "Why," he replied, as if he wondered at my asking such a simple question, "I seen that there notice up, of course." "I want to know the truth," I repeated slowly, and this time I was almost startled by the perfection with which I imitated Marion's inflexible intonation. His face assumed a pained and yet forgiving expression, and he regarded the hair broom with intense interest. I waited, as Marion had once waited for me, with the air of being willing to wait until he had time to compute the number of hairs it contained, and I tried to intimate silently that my waiting could have but one result. This specialty of Marion's was more difficult, but I succeeded, for William suddenly laughed and looked me full in the face with engaging candor. "Well, sir," he said, as if he found a difficulty in making the confession, "I didn't like to say so at first, but I thought--ha, ha!--it'd be a darn good joke on you." I smiled appreciatively. William had done well; indeed I could not have done better myself, but I recognized a hollowness in his laugh. I waited with silent expectancy, as one of Paul's chickens might wait after receiving a grain of corn from his store. He paused, looked a little blank, gulped, then with the air of one who reluctantly parts with his last coin, he added: "Besides, I wanted to see how the semaphore worked." I shook my head, sighed, looked at him pityingly, for I saw the misguided man had persuaded himself it was the truth, and I divined, I know not how, that he was mistaken. I tried to recall what Marion would have said at this juncture, and I said it; indeed, I said it so effectively that I wished Marion had been within earshot. If my voice had not been an octave lower than hers I might have doubted that it was mine. William's peach-tinted cheeks flushed crimson; he wiped his brow with his red bandanna. "I ain't been cornered like this," he exclaimed, "since my miss--" He checked the utterance with an abrupt cough, and continued in a low soliloquizing tone, "Now I come to think of it, the wind was blowin' pretty fresh and jest when I come opposite the gate I caught a whiff that set me thinkin'." "A whiff?" I asked, in surprise. "Hot--raspberry--pies," he explained, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.