Wheel Of Fortune by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

IX

Such methods did not appear shameful to Anthony Hazzard. Wherever one can get at the inner mind of another man, he felt, there is a reward for the effort. Feeling that Harry Fortune was about to tell his story, Hazzard particularly wished to be apparently absent from the scene. When the coldly critical ear of another mature man is listening, a liar will tell his tale with more accurate care. But to the credulous ear of a woman, he is apt to let his fancy run more easily at large.

In fact, Mr. Hazzard had not been in his place of concealment for two minutes before the story began. And Anne was directly asking for it.

She said: “Ever since I came to town to Uncle Anthony, I’ve heard about you and what they accuse you of doing. Oh, Harry Fortune, I’d give a great deal to know the truth.”

“There’s no use talking,” answered young Fortune. “It’s a queer-sounding story, you see. No use telling it until I have some sort of a proof to back myself up. When I get the facts…and God help me to them…then I’ll be ready to talk to a judge, and you can hear along with the rest.”

“You don’t understand,” she answered. “It won’t be hard for me to believe you.”

After that, there followed a little pause, and Anthony Hazzard could feel the eyes of the youngsters fixed on one another.

“That’s a kind thing to say,” murmured Harry Fortune. “But although it is a queer-sounding yarn, I’ll try to tell it exactly as things were. Four years in a prison,” he went on gravely, “make a mighty lot of difference in the way a man looks at things. The first week in the penitentiary was seven years of hell boiled down small. I hated the world, because it had done me a wrong. I wanted to get out and make trouble. If all the people in the world had been living in one house, about that time, I think I’d have put a match to it, if I could. You know?”

“I know,” said the girl. “Sometimes we don’t understand things. That’s the worst. Think what a truly kind, good man Uncle Anthony is. And yet I’ve gone for three years thinking that he was only a cruel old miser.”

“Everybody thought that,” said the youth. “But God knows what I think of him now. And there’s the pup…look yonder. He’s scratching at the door, trying to get out and follow Mister Hazzard. An animal like that can tell a good man. They’ve got an instinct for it, my mother used to say.”

His heavy steps approached the door behind where Anthony Hazzard was crouched; there was a faint squeal from the puppy, then the steps retreated.

“Give him to me, Harry,” said the girl’s voice. “A man doesn’t know how to handle such weak little things. See him kick and struggle now. Why, he’s like a grown-up dog already. He wants to be on the floor hunting mice, I suppose.

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