't freeze. You see the pitcher set right
between 'em, and--Oh! I didn't expect you'd believe it.

The "antiquing" went on harder than ever. Every time the Thompsons
landed a relic, they'd bring it out on the veranda or in to dinner and
gloat over it loud and pointed, while the Smalls would pipe all hands
to unload sarcasm. And the same vicy vercy when 'twas t'other way about.
'Twas interesting and instructive to listen to and amused the populace
on rainy days, so Peter T. said.

Adoniram Rogers had been mighty scurce 'round the Old Home sense the
davenport deal. But one morning he showed up unexpected. A boarder had
dug up an antique somewheres in the shape of a derelict plate, and
was displaying it proud on the piazza. The Thompsons was there and the
Smalls and a whole lot more. All of a sudden Rogers walks up the steps
and reaches over and makes fast to the plate.

"Look out!" hollers the prize-winner, frantic. "You'll drop it!"

Adoniram grunted. "Huh!" says he. "'Tain't nothing but a blue dish. I've
got a whole closet full of them."

"WHAT?" yells everybody. And then: "Will you sell 'em?"

"Sell 'em?" says Rogers, looking round surprised. "Why, I never see
nothing I wouldn't sell if I got money enough for it."

Then for the next few minutes there was what old Parson Danvers used to
call a study in human nature. All hands started for that poor, helpless
plate owner as if they was going to swoop down on him like a passel of
gulls on a dead horse-mack'rel. Then they come to themselves and stopped
and looked at each other, kind of shamefaced but suspicious. The Duchess
and her crowd glared at the Dowager tribe and got the glares back with
compound interest. Everybody wanted to get Adoniram one side and talk
with him, and everybody else was determined they shouldn't. Wherever he
moved the "Antiquers" moved with him. Milo watched from the side lines.
Rogers got scared.

"Look here," says he, staring sort of wild-like at the boarders. "What
ails you folks? Are you crazy?"

Well, he might have made a good deal worse guess than that. I don't know
how 'twould have ended if Peter T. Brown, cool and sassy as ever, hadn't
come on deck just then and took command.

"See here, Rogers," he says, "let's understand this thing. Have you got
a set of dishes like that?"

Adoniram looked at him. "Will I get jailed if I say yes?" he answers.

"Maybe you will if you don't," says Peter. "Now, then, ladies and
gentlemen, this is