Page:Top-Notch Magazine, May 1 1915 (IA tn 1915 05 01).pdf/109

 chokingly. "She brung a strange young feller inter the house, and he's got a crack on his cabeza, and he keeled over on the parlor sofy, and he looked like he was a goner, with his eyes shet, and she hollered and flopped on her knees beside him, and called him 'Reginal' and 'dear,' and called herself a murderer, and kissed him right slap on the kisser." He caught his breath with a gulping sound of distress. "And when Miss Sally asked her who he was, she said she didn't know, and he don't b'long round these parts, for I never see him before, and she's crazy as a June bug or she'd never do no such thing."

"This," said the judge, "is a case for immediate investigation. Under the circumstances, governor, we'll have to postpone that demonstration till some future date."

Then he set off for his home, a short distance up the street, accompanied by the agitated and urgent Lemuel Dodd.

HE governor and Hitchens made inquiry of the crowd regarding their missing driver, but no one present seemed to have seen the man. Presently the governor turned to his secretary.

"You don't imagine," he asked in a low tone, "that the young man who is injured in Judge Wiggin's house can be George?"

"The girl called him Reginald, according to that fellow who brought word to the judge."

"Still, I've got a queer notion that it may be the boy. Let's investigate."

When they reached Wiggin's front door, George, a bandage tied round his head, was just coming out, followed by the judge, who seemed to be highly disturbed and indignant.

"I'm all right now, governor," called the young man reassuringly. "A disagreeable bull helped me over a fence, and I sort of collapsed after walking into town."

"Governor," said Nathan Wiggin grimly, "as near as I can find out, your shuffer climbed a tree to git away from a toothless, half-blind old shepherd dog, and run like the devil when Libby's bull took after him. Then he follered my darter home, and walked right into the house arter her. Whuther or not he was shammin' when he flopped on the sofy with his eyes shet, Bessie was upsot and made a touse over him. She's a ruther emotional girl. My sister's lookin' after her now, and I've told her what I think of shuffers in gen'ral and young men that climb trees to get away from dogs without teeth enough to dent a biscuit."

The governor laughed. "There may be an excuse for the young man," he said. "He was bitten by a vicious dog when very young, but I don't think bulls could scare him much." He put his arm across the shoulders of the young man. "Are you sure you're not hurt much, George?"

"Well, not on the head," was the reply. "But that girl came pretty near finishing me. She's a perfect witch, and I"

"Such a statement concerning my darter is slanderous, considering the fuss she made over him," said Judge Wiggin in deep resentment. "But I don't s'pose it's anything more than could be expected of an ordinary shuffer."

Again the governor laughed in a peculiar way. "Perhaps not," he admitted, turning back to the judge. "I'd like to convince you, however, that my argument about automobiles was right, and, as long as you prevented me from catching my train after I had spent three hours persuading Ephraim Glover, of Palmyra, to withdraw and not con-