CHOOSING his words haltingly but rather happily, Mayor Foster, in that high penetrating voice of his, boldly assumed to make confession for himself and for all.
"We did Henry Harrington about all the harm we could do him," he began bluntly, "and now we're here to 'fess up—to make his sore heart glad by telling him that he's about the most loyal citizen Socatullo County ever had and at last we've got sense enough to know it. When he was trying to tell us what was right, we wouldn't listen. We called him a traitor and we howled him down. He wasn't a traitor. We were a lot of suckers, and I guess I was the great big hesucker of 'em all. Furthermore, it's admitted he's not guilty of what he's been in jail for. The officers say so. Our hearts had acquitted him already. We are here to tell him how wrong we were—how ashamed we are—and to ask him what we can do to make it right."
The massed people had with difficulty restrained themselves. "That's right. That's right, Foster!" irrepressibles kept breaking in.
"Three cheers for Henry Harrington! Yip! Yip!" shouted a voice on the far edge of the throng to be followed immediately by a vast sustained outburst of emotional cheering, with hand-clappings, with wavings of head-gear and tossings of the same into the air.
