Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/221

 not to invoke man's punishment on any. Its object accomplished, the words passed as they came to the priest and not to the man."

So Trafford was forced to let him go, none the wiser beyond what the priest chose that he should be; but as they hurried towards Millbank, he tried hard to look at all sides of the story and at last asked his companion:

"What do you think of it?"

"A batch of lies, told to a gossiping priest to be peddled out to us again," was the curt judgment.

Even this Trafford weighed carefully before commenting on it.

"You evidently think the fellow a shrewd chap."

"No; any one can see he's a stupid lout; just the kind of a thing to be used for a dirty job."

"Yet he had a long enough head to cheat the priest."

"Then you think the priest believed him?"

"I haven't a doubt of it," said Trafford.

Trafford's judgments had something of the weight of oracles with this man, who was able to see things but not to form opinions; and this curt