"And I don't believe but what it _could_ be fixed," he said. "I don't know much about the points of the case; but I should say that with the friends you've got, you wouldn't have a great deal of trouble. I presume there are some legal forms you would have to go through with; but those things can always be appealed and continued and _nolle prossed_, and all that, till there isn't anything of them, in the end. Of course, it would have been different if they could have got hold of you in the beginning. But now," said Pinney, forgetting what he had already said of it, "the whole thing has blown over, so that that letter of yours from Rimouski hardly started a ripple in Boston; I can't say how it was in Hatboro'. No, sir, I don't believe that if you went back now, and your friends stood by you as they ought to,--I don't believe you'd get more than a mere nominal sentence, if you got that." Northwick made no reply, but Pinney fancied that his words were having weight with him, and he went on: "I don't know whether you've ever kept the run of these kind of things; but a friend of mine has, and he says there isn't one case in ten where the law carries straight. You see, public feeling has got a good deal to do with it, and when the people get to feeling that a man has suffered enough, the courts are not going to be hard on him. No, sir. I've seen it time and again, in my newspaper experience. The public respects a man's sufferings, and if public opinion can't work the courts, it can work the Governor's council. Fact is, I looked into that business of yours a little, after you left, Mr. Northwick, and I couldn't see, exactly, why you didn't stay, and try to fix it up with the company. I believe you could have done it, and that was the impression of a good many other newspaper men; and they're pretty good judges; they've seen a lot of life. It's exciting, and it's pleasant, newspaper work is," said Pinney, straying back again into the paths of autobiography, "but I've got about enough of it, myself. The worst of it is, there ain't any outcome to it. The chances of promotion are about as good as they are in the U. S. Army when the Reservations are quiet. So I'm going into something else. I'd like to tell you about it, if you ain't too sleepy?" "I _am_ rather tired," said Northwick, with affecting patience. "Oh, well, then, I guess we'll postpone it till to-morrow. It'll keep. My! It don't seem as I _was_ going back to my wife and baby. It seems too good to be true. Every time I leave 'em, I just bet myself I sha'n't get back alive; or if I do that I sha'n't find 'em safe and sound; and I'm just as sure I'll win every time, as if I'd never lost the bet yet."