tell you, and you men know that
as well as I do. Every one of you has knowed him all his life!"

"Madam, I must ask you not to interrupt the proceedings," said the
coroner.

"Order in the court!" commanded the constable in his deepest official
voice.

"Oh, shut your fool mouth, Bill Frost!" said Mrs. Newbolt scornfully.

"Never mind, Mother," counseled Joe. "I'll be all right. They have to do
what they're doing, I suppose."

"Yes, they're doin' what that little snip-snapper with them colored
whiskers tells 'em to do!" said she.

Solemn as the occasion was, a grin went round at the bald reference to a
plainer fact. Even the dullest there had seen the grayish-red at the
roots of the coroner's beard. The coroner grew very red of face, and
gave some orders to his stenographer, who wrote them down. He thanked
the jurors and dismissed them. Bill Frost began to prepare for the
journey to Shelbyville to turn Joe over to the sheriff.

The first, and most important, thing in the list of preliminaries for
the journey, was the proper adjustment of Bill's mustache. Bill roached
it up with a turn of the forefinger, using the back of it, which was
rough, like a corn-cob. When he had got the ends elevated at a valiant
angle, his hat firmly settled upon his head, and his suspenders
tightened two inches, he touched Joe's shoulder.

"Come on!" he ordered as gruffly and formally as he could draw his edged
voice.

Joe stood, and Bill put his hand on his arm to pilot him, in all
officiousness, out of the room. Mrs. Newbolt stepped in front of them as
they approached.

"Joe!" she cried appealingly.

"That's all right, Mother," he comforted her, "everything will be
cleared up and settled in a day or two. You go on home now, Mother, and
look after things till I come."

"Step out of the way, step out of the way!" said Bill with spreading
impatience.

Mrs. Newbolt looked at the blustering official pityingly.

"Bill Frost, you ain't got as much sense as you was born with!" said
she. She patted Joe's shoulder, which was as near an approach to
tenderness as he ever remembered her to make.

Constable Frost fell into consultation with his adjutant, Sol Greening,
as soon as he cleared the room with the prisoner. They discussed gravely
in the prisoner's hearing, for Bill kept his hand on Joe's arm all the
time, the advisability of tying him securely with a rope before starting
on the journey to jail.

Joe grew indignant over this b