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 The constable thought it was just luck.

“Well, I dunno,” said Throgmartin, who was a philosopher, and inclined to view every matter from various angles. “Peter may of worked this out somehow.”

“Have you heard what Henry Hooker done to Siner in the land deal?”

Throgmartin said he had.

“No, I don't mean that. I mean Henry's last wrinkle in garnisheeing old Ca'line's estate in his bank for the rest of the purchase money on the Dilihay place.”

There was a pause.

“You don't mean it!”

“Damn 'f I don't.”

The constable's sentence shook with suppressed mirth, and the next moment roars of laughter came over the telephone wire.

“Say, ain't he the bird!”

“He's the original early bird. I'd like to get a snap-shot of the worm that gets away from him.”

Both men laughed heartily again.

“But, say,” objected Throgmartin, who was something of a lawyer himself,—as, indeed, all Southern men are,—“I thought the Sons and Daughters of Benevolence owed Hooker, not Peter Siner, nor Ca'line's estate.”

“Well, it is the Sons and Daughters, but Ca'line was one of 'em, and they ain't no limited li'bility