“I’ll look after Mary—­and you too, Timms.  I’ll see to it that—­” my Gouverneur Faulkner was answering the trembling plea for his mercy when the superintendent came in and unlocked the cage.

“Don’t let him know of the—­accident, youngster,” whispered the Gouverneur Faulkner to me, and in a very few minutes we were out of that prison into the Cherry car, and whirling with great rapidity down the country road with its tall trees upon both sides.

“Stop, Robert,” commanded His Excellency as we came under a large group of very old trees which made a thick shelter of their green leaves as they leaned together over the stone wall that bordered the side of the road.  “Now let me see just what did happen to that arm which came between poor Timms’ sharpened case knife and my life.  We are out of sight of the prison now.  It would have all been up with Timms if that attack upon me had been discovered.  Your pluck will have saved Timms, if he’s saved, as well as your Governor.  Here, turn towards me and let me see that arm.”  And as he spoke, my Gouverneur Faulkner put his arm across my shoulder and turned me towards him so that he could put his right hand on the sleeve of that cheviot bag in which was a long slash from the knife and which was now wet with my blood.

“I very much fear my beloved brown cheviot, which I have worn only a few times, is now dead; and how will I find another for my need!” I exclaimed with a great alarm when I saw that that knife had thus devastated my good clothing of which I had not many and for the procuring of which I was many thousand miles from my good friend and tailor in New York.  If I sought another suit in the city of Hayesville might there not be dangers of discoveries in the adjustment thereof?  “Is it not a vexation?” I asked as the Gouverneur Faulkner attempted to push back that murdered sleeve from my forearm.

“In the language of my friend Buzz, you are one sport, Robert.  Shell out of that coat immediately.  I want to see just how much of a scratch that is and I can’t get the sleeve up high enough,” commanded my Gouverneur Faulkner.  The tone of his voice was the same he had used to me in commanding that I take his mail to his nice lady stenographer, but his face was very white and his hand that he laid upon the collar of my coat for assisting me to lay it aside trembled with a great degree of violence.

“Indeed, my Gouverneur Faulkner, it is but a scratch and—­”

“Get out of that coat!”

“But—­”

“Off with that coat, Robert!” he commanded me, and before I could make resistance, my coat was almost completely off of me by his aid and I was obliged to let it slip into his hands.  He laid it on the back of the seat behind him, and with hands that were as gentle as those of old Nannette when dealing with one of my injuries of a great number in childhood, he rolled up the sleeve of my nice white shirt with the brown strip of coloring in accord with that beloved and regretted cheviot, and bared my forearm, which was very strong and white but which also appeared to me to be dangerously rounded for his gaze.  I was glad that that arm was covered with a nice gore which had come from the long slit but which had now well-nigh ceased to run from me, so that he could not observe that it was of such a feminine mould.