"But--but--good Heavens--" sputtered Elisha.
"I'm sure we can find the missin' articles, unless the children took 'em home--which I doubt," went on the woman serenely. "Last I saw of the imps they was out yonder under the apple trees. S'pose we have a look there."
Almost beside himself with an indignation he dared not voice, Elisha followed May Ellen out of doors.
Yes, trampled into the sodden ground lay the badge--its gleaming metal surface defaced by mud, and its fastening broken. There, too, lay the handcuffs, tightly snapped together and without a trace of a key to unlock them.
Elisha, livid with rage, opened his lips prepared to consign to the lower regions not only Tommy and Willie Cahoon, but their mother and May Ellen as well.
Before he could get the words out of his mouth, however, the suave voice of his housekeeper fell gently on his ear.
"'Course you can't lay this mishap up against me, Elisha," she was saying. "I ain't no more responsible for the children's thievin' than you are for the crime of the criminal you're preparin' to arrest. The actions of others are beyond our control. All we can do is to live moral lives ourselves."
"If you do feel I'm to blame, you'll just have to get somebody else to do your work. I wouldn't stay in no situation an' be regarded as--"
"I ain't blamin' you a mite, May Ellen," Elisha hurriedly broke in, panic-stricken lest his domestic tranquillity trembling so delicately on the brink of cataclysm topple into the void and be swallowed up. "As you say, the doin's of others are somethin' we can't take on our shoulders. Thank you for helpin' me hunt up these things."
As he spoke, he dubiously eyed the muddy objects in his hand. Well, at least, thought he, everything was not lost. He had gained time.
To wear his badge until a new pin was soddered to it was out of the question. In addition, the handcuffs were of no use at all unless a key could be found to unlock them.
He felt like a doomed man who had been granted an unlooked-for reprieve.
When he came steaming back with the revolver he would storm and rage like a bluefish in a net.
Nevertheless, accidents were unavoidable and in the meantime, while the emblems of the law were being repaired, who could tell what might happen?