“He never troubled you at the mill,” said I.  “No man was required at the mill door?”

“No!” And the landlord gave emphasis to the word by an oath, ejaculated with a heartiness that almost startled me.  I had not heard him swear before.  “No; the great trouble was to get him and keep him there, the good-for-nothing, idle fellow!”

“I am afraid,” I ventured to suggest, “that things don’t go on quite so smoothly here as they did at the mill.  Your customers are of a different class.”

“I don’t know about that; why not?” He did not just relish my remark.

“Between quiet, thrifty, substantial farmers, and drinking bar-room loungers, are many degrees of comparison.”

“Excuse me, sir!” Simon Slade elevated his person.  “The men who visit my bar-room, as a general thing, are quite as respectable, moral, and substantial as any who came to the mill—­and I believe more so.  The first people in the place, sir, are to be found here.  Judge Lyman and Judge Hammond; Lawyer Wilks and Doctor Maynard; Mr. Grand and Mr. Lee; and dozens of others—­all our first people.  No, sir; you mustn’t judge all by vagabonds like Joe Morgan.”

There was a testy spirit manifested that I did not care to provoke.  I could have met his assertion with facts and inferences of a character to startle any one occupying his position, who was in a calm, reflective state; but to argue with him then would have been worse than idle; and so I let him talk on until the excitement occasioned by my words died out for want of new fuel.

NIGHT THE THIRD

Joe Morgan’s child.

I don’t see anything of your very particular friend, Joe Morgan, this evening,” said Harvey Green, leaning on the bar and speaking to Slade.  It was the night succeeding that on which the painful and exciting scene with the child had occurred.

“No,” was answered—­and to the word was added a profane imprecation.  “No; and if he’ll just keep away from here, he may go to—­on a hard-trotting horse and a porcupine saddle as fast as he pleases.  He’s tried my patience beyond endurance, and my mind is made up that he gets no more drams at this bar.  I’ve borne his vile tongue and seen my company annoyed by him just as long as I mean to stand it.  Last night decided me.  Suppose I’d killed that child?”

“You’d have had trouble then, and no mistake.”

“Wouldn’t I?  Blast her little picture!  What business has she creeping in here every night?”

“She must have a nice kind of a mother,” remarked Green, with a cold sneer.

“I don’t know what she is now,” said Slade, a slight touch of feeling in his voice—­“heart-broken, I suppose.  I couldn’t look at her last night; it made me sick.  But there was a time when Fanny Morgan was the loveliest and best woman in Cedarville.  I’ll say that for her.  Oh, dear!  What a life her miserable husband has caused her to lead.”