er. Nay, more, he would have endured the ordeal
without a murmur had his father, deeming it unsafe to enter into
formal explanations, only hinted to him that this was a farce which
they two must play together. If his father had only winked at him!
Surely he might have done that with safety! But not to be admitted
to the secret,--not to be allowed to play the heroic part,--to be
used as an ignoble tool by a father who neither loved him nor knew
his courage,--that was too much! He would not betray his father--no,
a thousand times, no! But the day would come--

The afternoon dragged on. Jim sat there in his room, looking out
into the pleasant sunshine, conscious that the boys were playing
"three old cat" in the field not faraway--as rebellious and
magnanimous, as hot and angry, as heroic and morally muddled a boy
as one could wish to see. And looking at the affair from his point
of view, not many people will blame him. It is delightful, of
course, to have a pirate chief for father; but what if he makes you
walk the plank?

It is amusing to think of Mr. Peaslee and Jim each shut up in his
respective room; but if Mr. Peaslee in his gloomy parlor--faced by
the crayon portrait of his masterful wife, a vase of wax flowers
under a glass dome, the family Bible on a marble-topped table, and
three stiff horsehair-covered chairs--had the advantage of being
able to leave at any moment, he was even more perturbed in mind.

"Terrible awk'ard mess," he kept repeating to himself, as he mopped
his damp forehead with his handkerchief, "terrible awk'ard." And
indeed it would be awkward for a respectable citizen with political
aspirations to be accused before a grand jury of which he is a
member of assault with a dangerous weapon upon an inoffensive man.

Mr. Peaslee's reflections rose in a strophe of hope and fell in an
antistrophe of despair.

"'T ain't likely it hurt him any--just bird shot," said Hope.

"Bird shot's mighty irritatin'--specially to a wrathy fellow," said
Despair.

And alternating thus, his thoughts ran on: "Bird shot'll show I
didn't have any serious _in_tent; but mebbe a piece of the marble
struck him. He went off mighty lively; don't seem as if he'd been
hurt _much_; more scared hurt, likely. But he might have been hurt
bad, arm or suthin', mebbe. Marble! 'T ain't anythin' but baked
clay; split all to pieces prob'ly--but ye can't tell. I've heard ye
can shoot a taller candle through an inch plank--and that's
c