u found me out, sir. Let a lawyer get the name of being kind
and they say that he is emotional, but has no logic. Blackstone had to
give up poetry. Well, good-day. I'm busy."

I ate breakfast at the tavern, nodding over the table; and I was so
sleepy that I could scarcely sit my horse as I rode toward home. The day
was hot and drowsy was the air, in the road and on the hill-side, where
a boy, weary and heavy with the leg-pains of adolescence, was dragging
himself after a plow. Once I dozed off to sleep and awoke under a tree,
the wise old horse knowing that he could take advantage of my sleepiness
to bat his eyes in the shade, and when I spoke to him he started off at
a trot as if surprised to find that he had turned aside from his duty. I
was nearly home and was riding along half asleep when the frightful
squealing of a pig drew my attention down a lane that opened into the
road. The animal was caught under a rail fence and his companions were
running up to him, one after another, and were raking him with their
sharp teeth. I got down and fought off the excited beasts, knocked one
of them down for his cruelty, and lifted the fence to liberate the
prisoner; and when he was free his companions, the ones that had been
ripping his hide, ran up to congratulate him upon his good fortune; and
in the whole performance I saw a heartless phase of human life, musing
as I rearranged the rails that had been lifted away, and when I
straightened up there stood Etheredge looking at me.

"These are my hogs," he said.

"I didn't know that," I replied, "but I might have known that they were
members of your family."

"Yes, you might have known a great many things that you have never been
wise enough to find out. But I don't want to lash words with you, Mr.
Hawes. I simply stopped to tell you that a man who would go out of his
way to lift a heavy fence to help a hog is not a bad fellow; and I want
to apologize for anything that I have said to anger you. I have nothing
against you and I don't blame you for sticking to a friend. One of these
days you'll find that I'm not half as bad a fellow as you have had cause
to think me. Let us call off our engagement. Is it a go?"

"Doctor, I have no desire to kill you, and I think that your death would
be the result of our keeping that engagement."

"Pretty confident sort of a man, I take it. And after all, bravery is
nothing but a sort of over-confidence. But I don't believe that you
would kill