"There he is," says Steele, nudgin' me, "over in the corner by the writing shelf!"
What he points out is a long-haired, gray-whiskered old guy, with a faded overcoat slung over his shoulders like a cape, and an old slouch hat pulled down over his eyes. He's standin' there as still and quiet as if his feet was stuck to the floor.
"Why not?" says J. Bayard. "He's an ex-jailbird."
"Absconder," says he. "Got away with a hundred and fifty thousand from the local bank."
"Well, well!" says I. "Didn't spend it dollin' himself up, did he?"
"Oh, all that happened twenty years ago," says Steele. "The odd part of it is, though---- But come over to the hotel, where I can tell you the whole story."
And, say, he had a tale, all right. Seems Pedders had been one of the leadin' citizens,--cashier of the bank, pillar of the church, member of the town council, and all that,--with a wife who was a social fav'rite, and a girl that promised to be a beauty when she grew up. The Pedders never tried to cut any gash, though. They lived simple and respectable and happy. About the only wild plunge the neighbors ever laid up against him was when he paid out ten dollars once for some imported tulip bulbs.
Then all of a sudden it was discovered that a bunch of negotiable securities had disappeared from the bank vaults. The arrow pointed straight to Pedders. He denied; but he couldn't explain. He just shut up like a clam, and let 'em do their worst. He got ten years. Before he was put away they tried to make him confess, or give 'em some hint as to what he'd done with the bonds. But there was nothin' doin' in that line. He just stood pat and took his medicine.
Bein' a quiet prisoner, that gave no trouble and kept his cell tidy, he scaled it down a couple of years. Nobody looked for him to come back to Tullington after he got loose. They all had it doped out that he'd salted away that hundred and fifty thousand somewhere, and would proceed to dig it up and enjoy it where he wa'n't known.
But Pedders fooled 'em again. Straight back from the bars he come, back to Tullington and the little white story-and-a-half cottage on a side street, where Mrs. Pedders and Luella was waitin' for him.
She'd had some hand-to-hand tussle meanwhile, Mrs. Pedders had; but she'd stuck it out noble. At the start about nine out of ten of her neighbors and kind friends was dead sure she knew where that bunch of securities was stowed, and some of 'em didn't make any bones of sayin' she ought to be in jail along with Pedders. So of course that made it nice and comfy for her all around. But she opened up a little millinery shop in her front parlor, and put up jams and jellies, and raised a few violets under a window sash in the back yard. She didn't quite starve that first year or so; though nobody knew just how close she shaved it. And in time even them that had been her closest friends begun to be sorry for her.