"An’ I kept right on toowards him, an’ him shootin’ at me breasht four toimes--" He had got up, in the excitement he so often evoked in living over that dramatic moment again, to illustrate the action, and he saw Gusta and Charlie. Peltzer stopped, withdrew his arm hurriedly from Gusta’s waist, and then Crowley, forgetting his story, called out: "Oh-ho, me foine bucko!" Then Koerner saw Gusta, and, forgetting for a moment, tried to rise to his feet, then dropped back again. "Who’s dot feller mit you, huh? Who’s dot now?" he demanded. "Aw, tut, tut, man," said Crowley. "Shure an’ the girl manes no harm at all--an’ the laad, he’s a likely wan. Shure now, Misther Koerner, don’t ye be haard on them--they’re that young now! An’ ’tis the spring, do ye moind--and it’s well I can see the phite flower on the thorn tra in me ould home these days!" Gusta’s heart and Peltzer’s heart warmed to Crowley, but old Koerner said: "In mit you!" And she slipped hurriedly indoors. But nothing could harm her now, for the world had changed. XV Archie Koerner served his thirty days in the workhouse, then, because he was in debt to the State for the costs and had no money with which to pay the debt, he was kept in prison ten days longer, although it was against the constitution of that State to imprison a man for debt. Forty days had seemed a short time to Bostwick when he pronounced sentence; had he chosen, he might have given Archie a sentence, in fine and imprisonment, that would have kept him in the workhouse for two years; he frequently did this with thieves. These forty days, too, had been brief to Marriott, and to Eades, and they had been brief to Elizabeth, who had found new happiness in the fact that Mr. Amos Hunter had given Dick a position in the banking department of his Title and Trust Company. These forty days, in fact, had passed swiftly for nearly every one in the city, because they were spring days, filled with warm sunshine by day, and soft and musical showers by night. The trees were pluming themselves in new green, the birds were singing, and people were happy in their release from winter; they were busied about new clothes, with riding and driving, with plans for summer vacations and schemes for the future; they were all imbued with the spirit of hope the spring had brought to the world again. To Gusta, too, in her love, these days had passed swiftly, like a hazy, golden dream. But to Archie these forty days had not been forty days at all, but a time of infinite duration. He counted each day as it dragged by; he counted it when he came from his bunk in the morning; he counted it every hour during the long day’s work over the hideous bricks he could find no joy in making; he counted it again at evening, and the last thing before he fell asleep. It seemed that forty days would never roll around.