, did I? He was doing
all that I could ask, and more. For there wasn't a man in that whole
crowd who dared to sneeze until he got his cue from the Judge. But
that fat man got his jolt finally, just the same, and got it good,
too.

"He had just finished telling how Conway had cleaned up the village
kids, irrespective of size, whenever he felt the need of exercise, and
was looking around at the circle behind him to give them a chance to
back him up, when it happened. I told you a minute ago that I wished
you could have seen that boy, as I saw him that night, standing there
in that tavern doorway. You see, he'd come in so quietly that nobody
had heard him--come in just in time to hear the Judge's last words.
And when the Judge turned around he looked full into that boy's eyes.

"Oh, he got his, good and plenty! I didn't watch him very closely
because it was hard for me to take my eyes off the white face of that
boy at the door. But I did see that he went pretty nearly purple for a
minute, and I heard him gurgle, too, he was that surprised, before he
caught his breath. Then he stuck out one hand and tried to bluff it
out.

"'There's one of 'em, right now,' he sang out; but he should have
known that a man who's sure of his ground doesn't have to shout to
make his point. 'There's Young Denny Bolton,' he said, 'who went to
school with him, right here in this town. _Ask him_ if Jeddy Conway
was pretty handy as a boy!' And he laughed, Flash--commenced to
chuckle! Oh, there was no misunderstanding what he meant to insinuate.
'Ask him--but maybe he's still a little mite too sensitive to talk
about it yet--eh, Denny?'

"He thought he could bluff it--bluff me, with that boy standing there
in the doorway calling him a liar as if I didn't know it all, yet at
that minute I couldn't help but ask that boy a question. I think it
was mostly because I wanted to hear what the voice of a man with a
face like his would sound like, for he hadn't opened his lips to
answer that fat hypocrite's insinuation.

"So I asked him if he had known Conway well--asked him if he had had a
few set-to's with him himself. I'm not going to forget how he looked
when he turned toward me, either. I'm not going to forget the look on
his face as he swung around. And I'm remembering his voice pretty
fairly well, too, right now!

"'Maybe,' he answered me, and he almost drawled the words. 'Maybe I
did,' he said.

"Why, Flash, he couldn't have said more if he h