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The awful jest bursts upon him; he hears the screaming of the bomb-shell, then the explosion. It is a shock, but he never once loses his self-possession. His quick perception detects Friend Frisbie behind the gun; and he smiles with his intelligent, fine-cut face. Shall malice have the pleasure of knowing that the shot has told? Our orator is too sagacious for that.
Frisbie, they say, is jugged up in jail, and there's better men sometimes hung than that Jock Fairbanks. I guess some o' the gals are kindy sorry they sot their caps for 'em! The Faddle gals, I guess, would give all their old shews, if they'd a' kep away from the whelps.
It was a week after this farewell supper in the caboose hotel at Saint's Rest when Ford went down to Denver to borrow, on his P. S-W. stock, the ten thousand dollars to be deposited to the credit of the Bank of Copah. Following him, and only one train behind, came Frisbie, new from a confirmatory survey of the extension beyond the Copah district.
Still he remains a member of the firm of Fairbanks, Frisbie and Fabens. Still at times he is seen in the store, waiting on customers, when the others are absent, sitting now and then in the counting-room to counsel or converse, or enjoying a cool hour on the back piazza. Still he is very happy, yet not quite satisfied.
There was an entire western desert to be talked over during the courses, and Frisbie held his discovery in reserve until they had gone to smoke in a quiet corner of the great rotunda. Even then he approached it indirectly. "In taking up the line down the Pannikin we have followed the old S. L & W. survey pretty closely all the way from start to finish. What were your reasons, Stuart?" he asked.
After the usual preliminary forms had been observed, the prisoner was duly arraigned at the bar. When asked by the clerk of arraignments whether she were guilty or not guilty, she answered vehemently: "I am not guilty of anything at all; no, not I! I never did conspire against any lady! My Lord Viscount Vincent and his valet Frisbie did that!
"Madam!" exclaimed the inspector, in astonishment. "I fear it is as I have hinted, sir," persisted Claudia. "But who has been murdered?" "I suspect that a harmless old female servant, named Katie Mortimer who became aware of a dangerous secret, has been." "And by whom?" "I fear by a woman called Faustina Dugald and a man named Alick Frisbie."
He looked in the recess of the bay window; peeped behind curtains; opened closets: and finally drew a large easy-chair from the corner of the room. "Pray, whom do you expect to find concealed in my apartment, my lord?" demanded Claudia, white with rage. "My respectable valet, the good Mr. Frisbie. And here he is!" replied the viscount sarcastically.
The next day was a very busy one, for there were all the trunks to unpack, and the bureau drawers to fill, and places to be settled for this thing and that. By night they were in pretty good order, and began to feel at home, as people always do when their belongings are comfortably arranged about them. Mrs. Frisbie was growing less doleful.
"No time at all for the delay: about three weeks, maybe, for the actual changing of the gauge," said Ford coolly. "All right," laughed Frisbie. "Only you'll show us how. It doesn't lie in the back of my head or in Crapsey's, unless he's a better man than I hired him for." "Who is Crapsey?" "He is a Purdue man that I picked up and started out on the branch to make figures on the change of gauge.
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