an' then they lay hold with all the suckers on them hundred arms, an'
clutch an' wind, an' twist an' overlay, till, whether it's a drownin'
sailor or a ship, you can't see nothin' but cuttle-fish, an'--"

Jerome stopped working, staring at him. He was quite pale. His
imagination leaped to a glimpse of that frightful fish. "An'--what
comes--then?" he gasped.

"The cuttle-fish--has got a beak," said Ozias. "By-an'-by there ain't
nothin' but cuttle-fish."

Jerome saw quite plainly the monster writhing and coiling over a
waste of water, and nothing else.

"Look at this town, an' look at Doctor Prescott, an' look at Simon
Basset," Ozias went on, coming abruptly from illustration to object,
with a vigor of personal spite. "Look at 'em. You can't see much of
anything here but them two men. Much as ever you can see the
meetin'-house steeple. There are a few left, so you can see who they
be, like Squire Merritt an' Lawyer Means; but, Lord, they'd better
not get too careless huntin' and fishin' and card-playin', or they'll
git hauled in, partridges, cards, an' all. But I'll tell you what
'tis--about all that anybody can see in this town is the eyes an' the
arms of them two men, a-suckin' and graspin'.

"Doctor Prescott, he's a church member, too, an' he gives tithes of
his widders an' orphans to the Lord. That meetin'-house couldn't be
run nohow without him. If they didn't have him to speak in the
prayer-meetin's, an' give the Lord some information about the
spiritooal state of this town on foreign missions, an' encourage Him
by admittin' He'd done pretty well, as far as He's gone, why, we
couldn't have no prayer-meetin's at all."

Most of us have our personal grievances, as a vantage-point for
eloquence in behalf of the mass. Simon Basset had deprived Ozias
Lamb, by shrewd management, of the old Lamb homestead; Doctor
Prescott had been instrumental in hushing his voice in prayer and
exhortation in prayer-meeting.

The village people were not slow to recognize a certain natural
eloquence in Ozias Lamb's remarks; oftentimes they appealed to their
own secret convictions; yet they always trembled when he arose and
looked about with that strange smile of his. Ozias said once they
were half scared on account of the Lord, and half on account of
Doctor Prescott. Ozias was often clearly unorthodox in his
premises--no one could conscientiously demur when Doctor Prescott, a
church meeting having been called, presented for approva