Crossword-Solution: CATSPAW 7 letters, 31 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 14

October 18.--The gloomy prognostications of last night were not fulfilled, as the wind died away again, and we are lying now in a long greasy swell, ruffled here and there by a fleeting catspaw which is insufficient to fill the sails.

During the first part of his life he was the stalking horse of Bernard d’Armagnac; during the second, he was the passive instrument of English diplomatists; and before he was well entered on the third, he hastened to become the dupe and catspaw of Burgundian treason.

Whether from a desire to foil the Sheriff, whom he knew was Bud's rival in love, and so thought him the young man's enemy, or from the benevolent spirit induced by the recent contemplation of his virtues, McKee was impelled to give an account of the murder which very convincingly indicated Bud as a protesting catspaw, rather than a consenting accomplice.

But he did not; for with the apt closing words above recited, Mr Slyme; of too haughty a stomach to work, to beg, to borrow, or to steal; yet mean enough to be worked or borrowed, begged or stolen for, by any catspaw that would serve his turn; too insolent to lick the hand that fed him in his need, yet cur enough to bite and tear it in the dark; with these apt closing words Mr Slyme fell forward with his head upon the table, and so declined into a sodden sleep.

You walk off with your chestnut, and never a ‘Thank ye’ for poor Mickey the catspaw.” “It doesn’t look like quite a square deal, does it?” laughed the ranger.