Barnes jumped up, and began pacing around the room. He said that what I’d told him was wonderful, wonderful, and it was just what he needed, then, stopped in front of me an’ shook his finger sort of playful.

“You’re quite a tease, Sheriff. Almost made me lose my temper, and I’m a man who prides himself on self-control. You had this vital information all along, and yet you appeared to be defending Lacey.”

I said that, well, that was the way I was, a real card. He glanced at his watch, and asked me what time he could get a train into the city.

“Oh, you got lots of time,” I said. “Better’n a couple of hours. Best thing you can do is stay an’ have supper with us.”

“Why—Why, that’s very kind of you, Sheriff. Very kind.”

I got some whiskey out of the office, and we had ourselves a few drinks. He started talking about himself, him and the detective agency, me throwing in a word now and then by way of heading him on, and his voice began to get kind of bitter. It seemed like he hated what he was doing. He knew exactly what Talkington was, and he couldn’t make no excuses for it. It was a downright hateful outfit, and he was part of its hateful doings, and he hated himself because he was.

“You probably know what I mean, Sheriff. Even a man in your job has to chose his eyes to some very bad things.”

“You’re right about that,” I said. “I have to close ‘em if I want to stay on bein’ sheriff.”

“And do you want to? You’ve never thought of taking up another line of work?”

“Not for very long,” I said. “What else would a fella hike me do anyways?”

“Exactly!” His eyes lit up and they began to hook a hot bigger. “What else can you do? What else can I do? But, Nick—excuse me for being familiar—my name’s George, Sheriff.”

“Glad to know you, George,” I nodded, “an’ you go right on calling me Nick.”

“Thank you, Nick”—he took another drink of whiskey. “Now, here’s what I was going to ask, Nick and it’s something I’ve worried about a great deal. Does the fact that we can’t do anything else—does that excuse us?”

“Well,” I said, “do you excuse a post for fittin’ a hole? Maybe there’s a nest of rabbits down in that hole, and the post will crush ‘em. But is that the post’s fault, for fillin’ a gap it was made to fit?”

“But that’s not a fair analogy, Nick. You’re talking about inanimate objects.”

“Yeah?” I said. “So ain’t we all relatively inanimate, George? Just how much free will does any of us exercise? We got controls all along the line, our physical make-up, our mental make-up, our backgrounds; they’re all shapin’ us a certain way, fixin’ us up for a certain role in life, and George, we better play that role or fill that hole or any goddang way you want to put it or all hell is going to tumble out of the heavens and fall right down on top of us. We better do what we were made to do, or we’ll find it being done to us.”