was 'Jarnagan, Junior,' wasn't it?" said Manville to the judge, when they had driven past The Maples.
"Mr. Jarnagan's son, yes." Judge Sloan was opposed to flippancy in any guise.
Manville took his cue. "He's a bright little chap. Pity to spoil him in the passenger-business; it is an unscrupulous trade."
"It certainly seems to be," said the judge.
The ready assent was rather more than Manville had bargained for, so he tried to put in a defense.
"That is, in a general way. The temptations are pretty sharp. It's so much easier to tell people what they want to be told than to tell them the exact truth, you know."
But the judge was not in sympathy with any such view of things. "I don't agree with you," he said curtly. "Your business is much like any other: it is what you make it. And the exact truth is not only right: it is also expedient, in the long run."
Manville bit his lip and inwardly resented what he was pleased to call the judge's "high-and-mighty tone." Then he tried to say something which should be quite harmless and agreeable.
"I wonder if the boy will be at the meeting?"
"Inasmuch as he took the trouble to call it, and risked drowning in the lake to get back in time for it, I should suppose he would."
"I didn't know," rejoined the passenger-agent, with a final effort to be soothing and deferential. "The way the matter shapes up now, it would seem to be a waste of time, wouldn't it?"
They were nearing the school-house, and Judge Sloan spoke his mind freely:
"Don't take too much for granted, Mr. Manville. So far as I am concerned, you are both on trial. There is a very reprehensible question of trickery up between you; and our decision, so far as I may be able to influence it, will seek to vindicate the truth."
Manville turned his horse aside into a grove of oak saplings, and sprang out with the hitching-strap.
"You forget the present condition of Jarnagan's line, don't you, Judge?" he said.
"I forget nothing. If the lad can disprove your statements, that objection disappears. In that case, I can assure you there are not ten persons in the party who would go with you under any circumstances."
"But if he can't disprove them?"
"Then you have nothing to fear. If, as you intimated last night, the boy came here to solicit us merely to get the credit of selling the tickets over his line, knowing that the C. E. & W. could not transport us, then it will be the worse for him, and for his father's business-standing in this locality—that's all."
The judge crossed the road to the school-house, where the colonists were already filling the benches, leaving the passenger-agent in an unenviable frame of mind. An investigation was the last thing Manville desired, and he hitched and unhitched the horse several times while trying to make up his mind whether to advance or retreat. In the meantime Tom came up with his sister and Miss Haworth, and a glance at his youthful opponent decided Manville.
"By George! it won't do to be bluffed out by a boy this late in the day," he muttered, hitching the horse again. "I'd never hear the last of it as long as I live. If the old man 'll only hold that telegram back; or if Norty can manage to delay it—" He crossed the road and followed Tom into the school-house.
The little square room was well filled when Tom found seats near the door for his companions and himself. Judge Sloan and a committee, of which Aaron Simpson was the chairman, occupied seats on the teacher's platform; and when Manville entered he walked boldly up the aisle and took a vacant chair beside them.
Then the murmur of voices was hushed and the meeting grew formal while the judge's eyes sought and found Tom in his retirement near the door. Tom had a swift premonition of what was coming, and tried to make himself as small as possible. It was useless. The judge whispered to Simpson, and the farmer came down the aisle.
"Come on," he said, in a whisper which sounded like a shout in Tom's ears; "time's up."
"Oh, Mr. Simpson, I can't!" he said desperately, with fiery face and twitching nerves. "There isn't anything more for me to say. Please don't make me go!"
But Simpson was inexorable, and Kate added a needle-pointed taunt of exactly the right degree of penetration; and Tom was led away like a sheep to the slaughter. When he reached the platform and sat down facing the terrible battery of more than two hundred human eyes, the room spun around, and the kerosene lamps, brought in for the occasion by the neighbors, lurched and flickered in a most distressing manner. When the buzzing in his ears permitted him to hear ordinary sounds, the judge was speaking: