There was no answering laughter in Bert's eyes, and the man's face sobered. The boy swung off the wheel.
"I'm in trouble," he said abruptly.
"Home, school or business?"
"Business. Do you know a man in Springham named Clud?"
"I've heard of him. Sweet individual with a fat, warm body and a cold, thin heart. He'd sell a man's soul for a dollar. He's a shark, a buzzard and a polecat all rolled into one. Talks like a honeybee and stings like a snake. He's a trickster and a schemer, a liar and a cheat, a rascal and a rogue. If he got his just deserts he'd be down in State's Prison in a convict's cell. Every time I pass him in the street I come home and take a strong bath. The night he dies the angels will have to hold their noses. The church they take him into—if they take him into one—will have to be disinfected. Yes; I've heard of him. Why?"
The whimsical Tom Woods, full of dry humor and homely wisdom, was gone, and in his place was a man breathing fire and indignation. Every word of the unexpected denunciation thrust Bert through and through. The fears that had overwhelmed him at the farmhouse, then, were substantial and real. His last hope that he might be mistaken was gone. He sank down, and put his back against the trunk of a tree, and stared at the ground.
