Too late, alas! Hat Tyler's had been a Parthian shot. The
ship was out of the house altogether by then, and the roof had settled
back over its joists at a rakish angle. The whole after part of the
house was mashed into a neat concavity which would have made a perfect
mold for the _Minnie Williams'_ stern, and the _Minnie Williams_ was in
the stream again, with not a scratch about her.

"Ain't that something?" Elmer Higgins said, standing at the edge of this
declivity. "Ain't that something huge?"

"Stand there and gawk! I would if I was you!" cried his wife. "Oh, will
I ever get that laugh out of my ears if I live to be a hundred? Did ever
you hear anything so hateful? I think you're a pretty small part of a
man myself! The least you could have done was to have lit into her when
you had the chance.

"But no, not you! What do you do but stand there and never so much as
open your mouth!"

"I was so kind of took aback," Elmer advanced, "what with one thing and
another, I couldn't seem to lay my hands on jest the words I wanted. And
she standing there jest as she was too. Ain't she immense? Where you
going to look to for a solider woman than Hat?"

"It's just like her for all the world, pushing herself in where she's
not wanted," sobbed Pearl miserably. "The gall of her! And she just
itching to get this house out of the way too! I suppose you'll be just
contrary-minded enough now to say that she didn't do it on purpose?"

"No," said Elmer, solemn as a judge. "She forelaid for it all right, all
right. I been saying right along she warn't a woman to sit quiet under a
blow, and I told you as much at the time, mamma, if you'll recollect. I
said, 'When Hat hits back I look out from under.'"

He picked a lump of plaster out of his ear and lifted high the lamp.

"But my grief, my grief, when all is said and done, ain't she a
dabster!" he whispered with a tinge of admiration. "And warn't
it--warn't it nice calculation?"

THE MEEKER RITUAL[14]

[Note 14: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Joseph Hergesheimer.]

BY JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

From _The Century_

I. THE ROCK OF AGES

The entire pretension is so ridiculous that it is difficult to credit
the extent of its acceptance. I don't mean McGeorge's story, but the
whole sweep of spiritism. It ought to be unnecessary to point out the
puerility of the evidence--the absurd babble advanced as the speech of
wise men submerged in the silen