Page:Rideout--Beached keels.djvu/119

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BLUE PETER
105

Sheriff Moriarty called down to him. "Take him over to town and get his arm set," he ordered, and came stalking upward to engage in conversation with Mr. Powell. The scholar had now ventured out, pale and bewildered, into the sunlit flower garden; and over the tangle of sweet peas Archer could see him shaking hands timidly with the sheriff, like a mild curate receiving congratulations on a discourse. The sheriff was introducing several other men.

"Mr. Powell," he said briskly, "I want you to know my brothers, Mr. John Moriarty, and Mr. Michael, and Mr. Florence Moriarty; he's a lawyer, sir, and may be able to help you about this matter of the squatting; and Mr. Hugh Moriarty, that I think you've dealt with in groceries; and Mr. Ferris, my half-brother, sir."

The pale little man shook hands very precisely, all round. "I am glad to meet you, sir," he repeated, without an inkling of what this intrusion from the great world was all about. "Ah, Mr. Ferris,—non omnis Moriarty," he chirped, and in spite of the blank