“Has your uncle a telephone?” the justice asked, not unkindly. “No, sir,” said Westy. “Anyway, I wouldn’t want to telephone him.”
“Could you get your father in Bridgeboro by ’phone?”
“He’d be in New York, and anyway, I don’t want to ’phone him.”
“Hum,” mused the judge. “Well, I’m afraid I haven’ much choice then, my boy. The fine for what you did is a hundred dollars. I’ll have to turn you over to the sheriff, then perhaps I’ll get in communication——”
Westy’s sweaty, trembling hand came up out of his pocket bringing his treasure with it. Boyishly, he did not even think to remove the elastic band which was around the roll of bills, but laid the whole thing upon the justice’s desk.
“Here—here it is,” he said nervously, “—to—to pay for what I did. There’s more than what you said—there’s three dollars more.”
There was a touch of pathos in the innocence which was ready to pay the fine with extra measure—and to throw in an elastic band as well. Farmer Sands looked shrewdly suspicious as the justice removed the elastic band and counted the money; he seemed on the point of hinting that Westy might have stolen it.
“Where did you get this?” the justice asked, visibly touched at the sight of the little roll that Westy had handed over.
“I had about twenty-five dollars when I came,” said Westy, “and the rest my uncle paid me for working for him on his farm.”
“There seems to be three dollars too much,” the justice said, handing that amount back to Westy. The boy took it nervously and said, “Thank you.”
The crumpled bills and the elastic band lay in a disorderly little heap on the justice’s desk, and the local official, who seemed very human, contemplated them ruefully. Perhaps he felt a little twinge of meanness. Then he rubbed his chin ruminatively and studied Westy.
The culprit moved from one foot to the other and nervously replaced the trifling remainder of his fortune in his trousers pocket. He was afraid that now something was going to happen to spoil his good turn. He hoped that the justice would not ask him any more questions.
“Well, my young friend,” said that dignitary finally, “you’ve had a lesson in what it means to defy the law. I blame it to that rifle you have there more than to you. Does your father know you have that rifle?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Approves of it, eh?”
“N-no, sir; I promised him I wouldn’t shoot at anything but a target.”
“And you broke your promise?”
“Yes, sir.”
Still the judge studied him. “Well,” said he, after a pause, “I don’t think you’re a bad sor............