k over with you,"
faltered the old showman, surveying him ruefully. The little man took
a parting sniff at his finger-tips.

"You think, do you, that you've got over being driven up and that
now you can stop flying and perch a few minutes?" inquired the little
man with biting irony.

"I'll 'tend to your case now jest as close as I can," returned Hiram,
meekly.

"Well," proceeded the little man, after boring Hiram and then the
Cap'n for a time with steely eyes, "I happened to run across one
Ferdinand Parrott on the train, and he seemed to have what I've been
looking for, a property that I can convert into a sanitarium. My name
is Professor Diamond, and I am the inventor of the Telauto--"

But Hiram's curiosity did not extend to the professor's science.

"The idee is," he broke in, eagerly, "did Ferd Parrott say anything
about a morgidge and bill of sale bein' on this property, and be you
prepared to clear off encumbrances?"

"I am," declared the professor promptly.

"Then you take it," snapped Hiram, with comprehensive sweep of his
big hand. He kicked the alligator into the fireplace, took down his
overcoat and shrugged his shoulders into it. "Get your money counted
and come 'round to town office for your papers."

While he was buttoning it the Reverend Thayer returned, leading the
ladies of the Women's Temperance Workers, Miss Philamese Nile at his
side. But Hiram checked her first words.

"You talk to him after this," he said, with a chuck of his thumb over
his shoulder toward the professor. "Speakin' for Cap'n Aaron Sproul
and myself, I take the liberty to here state that we are now biddin'
farewell to the tavern business in one grand tableau to slow music,
lights turned low and the audience risin' and singin' 'Home, Sweet
Home'." He strode out by the front way, followed by Mrs. Look.

"Had you just as soon come through the kitchen with me?" asked the
Cap'n in a whisper as he approached his wife. "I'm goin' to do up
what's left of that plum-duff and take it home. It kind o' hits my
tooth!"

XXIX

Mr. Aholiah Luce, of the Purgatory Hollow section of Smyrna, stood
at bay on the dirt-banking of his "castle," that is, a sagged-in old
hulk of a house of which only the L was habitable.

He was facing a delegation of his fellow-citizens, to wit: Cap'n
Aaron Sproul, first selectman of the town; Hiram Look, Zeburee Nute,
constable; and a nervous little man with a smudge of smut on the side
of his nose