guess the old residents will recognize me, all right."

"But," declared the Cap'n, floundering for a mental footing, "it's
always been said to me that Dependence Crymble died off--away
somewhere."

"I've already told you I died," said the thin man, still mild but
firm. "That's right, just as you've heard it."

"There's a stone in the graveyard to you," went on the Cap'n, clawing
his stubby fingers into his bristle of hair, "and they've always
called her 'Widder Crymble' and"--he stood up again and leaned
forward over the table in the attitude of Jove about to launch a
thunderbolt and gasped--"she's goin' to get married to Bat Reeves,
Tuesday of next week--and he's the most infernal scalawag in this
town, and he's took her after he's tried about every other old maid
and widder that's got property."

The thin man did not even wince or look astonished. His querulous
mouth only dropped lower at the corners.

"I don't care who marries her. She's a widder and can marry any one
she's got a mind to. I didn't come back here to mix in. She's welcome
to the property I left her. There was a will. It's hers. I've been
administered on according to law. All I want is that school-house
back from the town. That's mine by law."

Cap'n Sproul sat down once more.

"Well," he said at last, with some indignation, "if you was dead and
wanted to stay dead and leave a widder and property and let her get
married again, and all that--what in the name of the yaller-bellied
skate-fish have ye come ghostin' round here for to tip everything
upside down and galley-west after it's been administered on and
settled? And it gets town business all mixed up!"

The thin man smiled a wistful smile.

"The poet says: 'Where'er we roam, the sky beneath, the heart sighs
for its native heath.' That's the sentiment side of it. But there's
a practical side. There's the school-house. It was worth passing this
way to find out whether the town had abandoned it--and I reckoned
it had, and I reckoned right. I have presentiments that come true.
I reckoned that probably the relict would put a stone in the graveyard
for me. I have a presentiment that I shall die twice more, staying
dead the fifth time I pass away. That will be here in this town, and
the gravestone won't be wasted."

While the first selectman was still trying to digest this, the thin
man opened his valise. He took out a nickel plate that bore his name.

"This is my casket-plate," he explained,