, at the rate of two hats a year,
was very slowly extinguishing the store. Like most people who frequent
auctions, he was not provident, except in hats, and presented a
startling appearance in his patched and shrunken raiment when he mounted
a bright, new tile, and took to the sidewalk. His name had become, in
all grades of society, "Bell-crown."

The other eccentric citizen was the subject of a real mystery, and even
more burlesque. He wore a hat, apparently more than a century old, of a
tall, steeple crown, and stiff, wavy brim, and nearly twice as high as
the cylinders or high hats of these days. It had been rubbed and
recovered and cleaned and straightened, until its grotesque appearance
was infinitely increased. If the wearer had walked out of the court of
King James I. directly into our times and presence, he could not have
produced a more singular effect. He did not wear this hat on every
occasion, nor every day, but always on Sabbaths and holidays, on funeral
or corporate celebrations, on certain English church days, and whenever
he wore the remainder of his extra suit, which was likewise of the
genteel-shabby kind, and terminated by greenish gaiters, nearly the
counterpart, in color, of the hat. To daily business he wore a cheap,
common broadbrim, but sometimes, for several days, on freak or unknown
method, he wore this steeple hat, and strangers in the place generally
got an opportunity to see it.

Meshach Milburn, or "Steeple-top," was a penurious, grasping, hardly
social man of neighborhood origin, but of a family generally
unsuccessful and undistinguished, which had been said to be dying out
for so many years that it seemed to be always a remnant, yet never
quite gone. He alone of the Milburns had lifted himself out of the
forest region of Somerset, and settled in the town, and, by silence,
frugality, hard bargaining, and, finally, by money-lending, had become a
person of unknown means--himself almost unknown. He was, ostensibly, a
merchant or storekeeper, and did deal in various kinds of things,
keeping no clerk or attendant but a negro named Samson, who knew as
little about his mind and affections as the rest of the town. Samson's
business was to clean and produce the mysterious hat, which he knew to
be required every time he saw his master shave.

As soon as the lather-cup and hone were agitated, Samson, without
inquiry, went into a big green chest in the bedroom over the old wooden
store, and drew ou