And it seems that Thatcher, with a zeal worthy of a better cause, has been raking up the ashes of an old affair of Bassett's with a woman, and he's trying to hitch it on to the story I told him about this book.

He says by shaking this at Bassett he can persuade him that he's got enough ammunition to blow him out of the water.

But I don't believe a word of it; I won't believe such a thing of Morton Bassett.

And even if I did, Thatcher can't have that book.

I owe it to the woman whose baby I baptized up there in the hills to keep it.
And the woman may be living, too, for all I know.