XIX

ESKEW ARP

As the Judge continued his walk down
Main Street, he wished profoundly
that the butterfly (which exhibited
no annoyance) had been of greater
bulk and more approachable; and it
was the evil fortune of Joe's mongrel to encounter
him in the sinister humor of such a wish unfulfilled.
Respectability dwelt at Beaver Beach under the
care of Mr. Sheehan until his master should return;
and Sheehan was kind; but the small dog found
the world lonely and time long without Joe. He
had grown more and more restless, and at last, this
hot morning, having managed to evade the eye of
all concerned in his keeping, made off unobtrusively,
partly by swimming, and reaching the road,
cantered into town, his ears erect with anxiety.
Bent upon reaching the familiar office, he passed
the grocery from the doorway of which the pimply
cheeked clerk had thrown a bad potato at him a
month before. The same clerk had just laid down
the Tocsin as Respectability went by, and,
inspired to great deeds in behalf of justice and his
native city, he rushed to the door, lavishly seized,
this time, a perfectly good potato, and hurled it
with a result which ecstasized him, for it took the