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He raised it in one threatening hand, and every man there seemed to tremble, while old Luke put out his long fingers with an entreaty that ill became them. "You want to hear the letter?" old Smead called out. "I thought so." Putting the bottle down again, but still keeping one hand upon it, he drew a folded paper from his breast.
Old Smead had now his audience before him in good shape, and his next words were of a character to make evident the purpose of this meeting. "Heirs of Anthony Westonhaugh, deceased," he began in a sing-song voice strangely unmusical, "I congratulate you upon your good fortune at being at this especial moment on the inner rather than outer side of your amiable relative's front-door.
He accepted the invitation, crossed over with the courteous officer, and reports the ramparts to have been twenty feet thick, about twenty feet high, and mounted with above twenty cannon. Little trace of either now remains. Smead and her infant daughter "Captivity" died in Canada, and, by a singular fatality, her husband had scarcely returned home when he was waylaid and killed by Indians.
I'm kind o' scairt for fear I'll sp'ile suthin' er other. Sometimes I feel as if I'd like to crawl under the grand pyano an' git out o' danger. Now look at old gran'pa Smead in his gold frame on the wall. He's got me buffaloed. Watches every move I make. Betsey laughs an' tells me I can sp'ile anything I want to, but gran'pa is ever remindin' me o' the ancient law o' the Smeads an' the Persians."
He was a bachelor who called now and then at the home of Miss Betsey Smead, a wealthy spinster of Pointview, but nothing had ever come of it. He sat with his feet on his desk and his mind on the subject of extravagance. When he was doing business he sat like other men, but when his thought assumed a degree of elevation his feet rose with it.
Old Smead had now grown pale himself, and read with difficulty the lines which were to end this frightful scene. As I saw the red gleam of terror shine out from his small eyes, I wondered if he had been but the blind tool of his implacable client, and was as ignorant as those before him of what was to follow this heavy arraignment.
As I see the matter now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such members of his miserable family as fully recognised their sin and were truly repentant." It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.
"You know me?" he now unexpectedly snapped, bestowing another look over his shoulder at that oppressive figure in the chair. I'm only Smead, the lawyer. Mr. Anthony Westonhaugh's lawyer," he repeated, with another glance of recognition in the direction of the picture.
As I see the matter now, this appeal to the honesty of the persons so collected was a test by which my unhappy client strove to save from the general fate such members of his miserable family as fully recognized their sin and were truly repentant." It was Lawyer Smead. He had lingered behind the others to tell her this.
They have enough to do as it is poor fellows they hardly get a night's rest. Miss Betsey's home has already given 'em a lot o' trouble." His humor had relieved its pressure in the deep, good-natured chuckle of the Yankee, as he strode up an' down the floor with both hands in his trousers pockets. "Look at that ol' duffer," he went on, as he pointed at the stern features of grandpa Smead.
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