Page:James Hopper--Caybigan.djvu/243

Rh have expressed her infinitely better; but there was the fact, the stubborn fact, which manifested itself with slight provocation by a grim tightening of the thin lips, and the phrase—proverbial now throughout the P. I.'s—"Mr. Pinney, well, the less said about him the better. He was a handsome man, but he was a wicked man"—the "handsome" being pronounced with a rising inflection, and the antithetic adjective with a drop into tenebrous basso-profundo.

Of Pinney père this is all we ever knew, although in departmental circles he was a subject fertile of delicious speculation. That to be wicked he had had ample temptation, knowing the widow, we cheerfully granted; but what chance he ever had had to succumb, knowing the widow, we could not imagine. Of Pinney fils we knew still less, nothing at all, in fact, what little there was being the property of the postal authorities and consisting of records of money orders sent monthly by the widow to a well known western college town. But of the widow herself, good Lord, we knew only too much.

For she was a terror and a pest. From the day she placed her number tens upon Philippine soil the islands knew no peace. The educational department became a nightmare, and clamour filled all the others. She had a passion for "little trips"—and her will was adamant and her tongue a visitation. They all