“Is it? I can give you the stuff, brother, loads of it, and don’t think I can’t. I’m a girl who knows her Poisonville.” She looked down at her gray-stockinged knees, waved one leg at me, and exclaimed indignantly: “Look at that. Another run. Did you ever see anything to beat it? Honest to God! I’m going barefoot.”

“Your legs are too big,” I told her. “They put too much strain on the material.”

“That’ll do out of you. What’s your idea of how to go about purifying our village?”

“If I haven’t been lied to, Thaler, Pete the Finn, Lew Yard and Noonan are the men who’ve made Poisonville the sweet-smelling mess it is. Old Elihu comes in for his share of the blame, too, but it’s not all his fault, maybe. Besides, he’s my client, even if he doesn’t want to be, so I’d like to go easy on him.