extending one slim shaking hand toward the workers beside the couch.
"Here, I ain't supposing but that most of you are chasing headlines for
paper rags--print down that Allan Gerard was killed by that man. I'm
saying it; Gerard cut him off from getting past, and he pitched a wrench
that knocked him out. Go down to the course and you'll get the wrench to
Missouri you, on the road. Rose knocked out Gerard and our car ran
wild."

The concentrated vehemence and force of the arraignment stupefied even
the reportorial instinct. Dazed, the hearers stared from the
mechanician's tattered, accusing figure to the pale young driver who
offered neither surprise nor defense, but went steadily on with his
unsteadying task.

"He wrecked us----" Rupert made a limping step forward. "Well? Did you
guess I was reciting this to put you to sleep? Why ain't you taking him
out of here? Put _his_ mechanician through the third degree and get his
story--who nailed you fast here? Why don't you _move_?"

The scissors slipped tinkling to the floor from Corrie's grasp. Livid
with wrath, the surgeon stood up.

"Get out, all, and take that maniac with you," he stormed. "Not a word;
I don't care if Rose has murdered all Long Island, he's some use now.
Clear out and leave this room quiet. Quick."

He was obeyed, the nearest men drawing Rupert into the retiring group,
and the door closed.

Outside, the reporters became themselves. While ambulances dashed up,
motor cycles, official cars and private vehicles arrived to halt around
the little house, the Mercury's mechanician was hurried apart and his
story coaxed from him in detail.

The last automobile to come up, an hour after the accident, was a
gilt-monogramed foreign limousine. From it descended a gentleman who,
after a comprehensive glance over the disordered, crowded orchard,
crossed straight to where Rupert sat hunched on a kitchen chair opposite
the shattered car.

"Rupert," he appealed, catching the mechanician's shoulder. "Rupert,
what's been happening here?"

Very deliberately Rupert lifted his dark face, its grimness not lessened
by flecks and bars of court-plaster; across the apathy of physical
exhaustion his black eyes gleamed vivid, hard resolve.

"Your son's finished Gerard, Mr. Rose," he stated, monotonously
explicit. "He slipped his temper and fired a wrench at Gerard for not
giving him the road. It hit him, and we ran wild without a driver till
we struck here. Ask him--he's