It was after one
o'clock. "Give me an alarm-clock," I said, "because Carpenter wakes
with the birds, and we don't want him escaping by the window."
So it came about that at daybreak I tapped on Carpenter's door,
softly, so as not to waken him if he were asleep. But he answered,
"Come in;" and I entered, and found him sitting by the window,
watching the dawn.
I stood timidly in the middle of the room, and began: "I realize, of
course, Mr. Carpenter, that I have taken a very great liberty with
you--"
"You have said it," he replied; and his eyes were awful.
"But," I persisted, "if you knew what danger you were in--"
Said he: "Do you think that I came to Mobland to look for a
comfortable life?"
"But," I pleaded, "if you only knew that particular gang! Do you
realize that they had planted an infernal machine, a dynamite bomb,
in that room? And all the world was to read in the newspapers this
morning that you had been conspiring to blow up somebody!"
Said Carpenter: "Would it have been the first time that I have been
lied about?"
"Of course," I argued, "I know what I have done--"
"You can have no idea what you have done.
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