For several moments there was a magnificent attempt at silence, but it utterly failed.  The boys saw that the deacon and Tom were working a very large claim, and to the best of their ability they assisted.

Stumpy Flukes, under the friendly shelter of the bar, was able to fully express his feelings through his eyelids, but the remainder of the party, by taking turns at staring out the windows, and contemplating the bottles behind the bar, managed to delude themselves into the belief that their eyes were invisible.  Finally, Tom arose.  “Deacon—­boys,” he said, “I never got that letter.  I wus afeard she’d hear about my scrape, so I wrote her all about it, ez soon ez I got sober, an’ begged her to forgive me.  An’ I waited an’ hoped an’ prayed for an answer, till I growed desperate; an’ came out here.”

“She never heerd from you, Thomas,” sighed the deacon.

“Deac’n,” said Tom, “do you s’pose I’d hev kerried this for years”—­here he drew out a small miniature of his wife—­“ef I hadn’t loved her?  Yes, an’ this too,” continued Tom, producing a thin package, wrapped in oilskin.  “There’s the only two letters I ever got from her, an’, just cos her hand writ ’em, I’ve had ’em just where I took ’em from for four years.  I got ’em at Albany, ‘fore I got on that cussed tare, an’ they was both so sweet an’ wifely, that I’ve never dared to read ’em since, fur fear that thinkin’ on what I’d lost would make me even wuss than I am.  But I ain’t afeard now,” said Tom, eagerly tearing off the oilskin, and disclosing two envelopes.

He opened one, took out the letter, opened it with trembling hands, stared blankly at it, and handed it to the deacon.

“Thar’s my letter now—­I got ’em in the wrong envelope!”

“Thomas,” said the deacon, “the best thing you can do is to deliver that letter yourself.  An’ don’t let any grass grow under your feet, ef you ken help it.”

“I’m goin’ by the first hoss I ken steal,” said Tom.

“An’ tell her I’ll be along ez soon as I pan out enough,” continued the deacon.

“An’ tell her,” said Boston Ben, “that the gov’nor won’t be much behind you.  Tell her that when the crowd found out how game the old man was, and what was on his mind, that the court was so ashamed of hisself that he passed around the hat for Pet’s benefit, and”—­here Boston Ben thoughtfully weighed the hat in his hands—­“and that the apology’s heavy enough to do Europe a dozen times; I know it, for I’ve had to travel myself occasionally.”

Here he deposited the venerable tile with its precious contents on the floor in front of the deacon.  The old man looked at it, and his eyes filled afresh, as he exclaimed: 

“God bless you!  I wish I could do something for you in return.”

“Don’t mention it,” said Boston Ben, “unless—­you—­You couldn’t make up your mind to a match with English Sam, could you?”

“Come, boys,” interrupted Stumpy Flukes; “its my treat—­name your medicine—­fill high—­all charged?—­now then—­bottom up, to ’The meanest man at Blugsey’s’!”