“You bet you do, old chap!  That’s the spirit!  Do you rush up and present my profound apologies to the ladies—­important business matter.  I’ll be getting out the buzz wagon.  You shall see Mary Selden.  You shall also see how right well and featly our no-bel and intrepid young hero bore himself, just a-pitchin’ and a-rarin’, when inclination jibed with jooty!”

Two minutes later they took the curve by the big gate on two wheels.  As they straightened into the river road, Mr. Sedgwick spread one hand over his heart, rolled his eyes heavenward and observed with fine dramatic effect: 

“’I claim your pr-r-r-r-omise’!”

Mr. Johnson sat in a cell of Vesper Jail, charged with assault and battery in the nth degree; drunk and disorderly understood, but that charge unpreferred as yet.  It is no part of legal method to bring one accused of intoxication before the magistrate at once, so that the judicial mind may see for itself.  By this capital arrangement, the justly intoxicated may be acquitted for lack of convincing evidence, after they have had time to sober up; while the unjustly accused, who should go free on sight, are at the mercy of such evidence as the unjust accuser sees fit to bring or send.

The Messrs. Poole had executed their commission upon Vesper Bridge, pouncing upon Mr. Johnson as he passed between them, all unsuspecting.  They might well have failed in their errand, however, had it not been that Mr. Johnson was, in a manner of speaking, in dishabille, having left his gun at the hotel.  Even so, he improvised several new lines and some effective stage business before he was overpowered by numbers and weight.

The brothers Poole were regarded with much disfavor by Undersheriff Barton, who made the arrest; but their appearance bore out their story.  It was plain that some one had battered them.

Mr. Johnson quite won the undersheriff’s esteem by his seemly bearing after the arrest.  He accepted the situation with extreme composure, exhibiting small rancor toward his accusers, refraining from counter-comment to their heated descriptive analysis of himself; he troubled himself to make no denials.

“I’ll tell my yarn to the judge,” he said, and walked to jail with his captors in friendliest fashion.

These circumstances, coupled with the deputy’s experienced dislike for the complaining witnesses and a well-grounded unofficial joy at their battered state, won favor for the prisoner.  The second floor of the jail was crowded with a noisy and noisome crew.  Johnson was taken to the third floor, untenanted save for himself, and ushered into a quiet and pleasant corner cell, whence he might solace himself by a view of the street and the courthouse park.  Further, the deputy ministered to Mr. Johnson’s hurts with water and court-plaster, and a beefsteak applied to a bruised and swollen eye.  He volunteered his good offices as a witness in the moot matter of intoxication and in all ways gave him treatment befitting an honored guest.