nother. They seemed nice, pleasant enough folks;
laughed a good deal, but I didn't mind that. I walked out into the
yard along with 'em and then, after I left 'em, I stood for a
minute on the front step of the shop, with the open door between me
and this house here. A minute or so later I heard 'em come into
this very room. They couldn't see me, 'count of the door, but I
could hear them, 'count of the windows bein' open. And then . . .
Huh . . . Oh, well."

He sighed and lapsed into one of his long fits of abstraction. At
length Mrs. Armstrong ventured to remind him.

"And then--?" she asked.

"Eh? Oh, yes, ma'am! Well, then I heard one of the comp'ny say:
'I don't wonder you enjoy it here, Ed,' he says. 'That landlord of
yours is worth all the rent you pay and more. 'Tain't everybody
that has a dime museum right on the premises.' All hands laughed
and then Colonel Davidson said: 'I thought you'd appreciate him,'
he says. 'We'll have another session with him before you leave.
Perhaps we can get him into the house here this evenin'. My wife
is pretty good at that, she jollies him along. Oh, he swallows it
all; the poor simpleton don't know when he's bein' shown off.'"

Mrs. Armstrong uttered an exclamation.

"Oh!" she cried. "The brute!"

"Yes'm," said Jed, quietly, "that was what he said. You see," with
an apologetic twitch of the lip, "it came kind of sudden to me and--
and it hurt. Fact is, I--I had noticed he and his wife was--er--
well, nice and--er--folksy, as you might say, but I never once
thought they did it for any reason but just because they--well,
liked me, maybe. Course I'd ought to have known better. Fine
ladies and gentlemen like them don't take much fancy to dime museum
folks."

There was just a trace of bitterness in his tone, the first Mrs.
Armstrong had ever noticed there. Involuntarily she leaned toward
him.

"Don't, Mr. Winslow," she begged. "Don't think of it again. They
must have been beasts, those people, and they don't deserve a
moment's thought. And DON'T call them ladies and gentlemen. The
only gentleman there was yourself."

Jed shook his head.

"If you said that around the village here," he drawled, "somebody
might be for havin' you sent to the asylum up to Taunton. Course
I'm much obliged to you, but, honest, you hadn't ought to take the
risk."

Mrs. Armstrong smiled slightly, but hers was a forced smile. What
she had just heard, told in her guest'