The explanation was profane and lengthy and given to me in a loud and blustering voice. The substance of it was that he had built Personville brick by brick with his own hands and he was going to keep it or wipe it off the side of the hill. Nobody could threaten him in his own city, no matter who they were. He had let them alone, but when they started telling him, Elihu Willsson, what he had to do and what he couldn’t do, he would show them who was who. He brought the speech to an end by pointing at the corpse and boasting:

“That’ll show them there’s still a sting in the old man.”

I wished I were sober. His clowning puzzled me. I couldn’t put my finger on the something behind it.

“Your playmates sent him?” I asked, nodding at the dead man.

“I only talked to him with this,” he said, patting the automatic on the bed, “but I reckon they did.”

“How did it happen?”