The loungers at the door made way for one of their party, who was half dragged, half pushed into the shop.  “Here he is,” said half a dozen eager voices, in the fond belief that his presence might impart additional humor to the situation.  He cast a deprecating glance at Mrs. Tucker and said, “It’s so, madam!  This yer place is attached; but if there’s anything you’re wanting, why I reckon, boys,”—­he turned half appealingly to the crowd, “we could oblige a lady.”  There was a vague sound of angry opposition and remonstrance from the back door of the shop, but the majority, partly overcome by Mrs. Tucker’s beauty, assented.  “Only,” continued the officer explanatorily, “ez these yer goods are in the hands of the creditors, they ought to be represented by an equivalent in money.  If you’re expecting they should be charged”—­

“But I wish to, pay for them,” interrupted Mrs. Tucker, with a slight flush of indignation; “I have the money.”

“Oh, I bet you have!” screamed a voice, as, overturning all opposition, the malcontent at the back door, in the shape of an infuriated woman, forced her way into the shop.  “I’ll bet you have the money!  Look at her, boys!  Look at the wife of the thief, with the stolen money in diamonds in her ears and rings on her fingers. She’s got money if we’ve none. She can pay for what she fancies, if we haven’t a cent to redeem the bed that’s stolen from under us.  Oh yes, buy it all, Mrs. Spencer Tucker! buy the whole shop, Mrs. Spencer Tucker, do you hear?  And if you ain’t satisfied then, buy my clothes, my wedding ring, the only things your husband hasn’t stolen.”

“I don’t understand you,” said Mrs. Tucker coldly, turning towards the door.  But with a flying leap across the counter her relentless adversary stood between her and retreat.

“You don’t understand!  Perhaps you don’t understand that your husband not only stole the hard labor of these men, but even the little money they brought here and trusted to his thieving hands.  Perhaps you don’t know that he stole my husband’s hard earnings, mortgaged these very goods you want to buy, and that he is to-day a convicted thief, a forger, and a runaway coward.  Perhaps, if you can’t understand me, you can read the newspaper.  Look!” She exultingly opened the paper the sheriff had been reading aloud, and pointed to the displayed headlines.  “Look! there are the very words, ‘Forgery, Swindling, Embezzlement!’ Do you see?  And perhaps you can’t understand this.  Look!  ’Shameful Flight.  Abandons his Wife.  Runs off with a Notorious’”—­

“Easy, old gal, easy now.  D—­n it!  Will you dry up?  I say. Stop!”

It was too late!  The sheriff had dashed the paper from the woman’s hand, but not until Mrs. Tucker had read a single line, a line such as she had sometimes turned from with weary scorn in her careless perusal of the daily shameful chronicle of domestic infelicity.  Then she had coldly wondered if there could be any such men and women.  And now!  The crowd fell back before her; even the virago was silenced as she looked at her face.  The humorist’s face was as white, but not as immobile, as he gasped, “Christ! if I don’t believe she knew nothin’ of it!”