au when folks were trying to keep awake at eleven
o'clock. The brook came babbling down over rocks and was conveyed
off-stage by means of a V-shaped spout. There was much merriment when
the audience discovered that the brook could be heard running uphill
behind the scenes; two hobble-de-hoy boys were dipping the water with
pails from the washboiler at the end of the sluice and lugging it
upstairs, where they dumped it into the brook's fount. The brook's
peripatetic qualities were emphasized when both boys fell off the top of
the makeshift stairs and came down over the rocks, pails and all. Then
there was hilarity which fairly rocked the hall.

For some moments another sound--a sound which did not harmonize with the
laughter--was disregarded by the audience.

All at once the folks realized that a man was squalling
discordantly--his shrieks almost as shrill as a frightened porker's
squeals. Heads were snapped around. Eyes saw Dorsey, the municipal
watchman, almost the only man of the village of Egypt who was not of
the evening's audience in Town Hall. He was standing on a settee at
the extreme rear of the auditorium. He was swinging his arms wildly; as
wildly was he shouting. He noted that he had secured their attention.

"How in damnation can you laugh" he screamed. "The bank has been robbed
and the cashier murdered!"

CHAPTER XIV

A BANK TURNED INSIDE OUT

When the skeow-wowed "brook" twisted the drama into an anticlimax of
comicality, the players who were on the stage escaped the deluge by
fleeing into the wings.

Vona had been waiting for her cue to join the hero and pledge their vows
beside the babbling stream. After one horrified gasp of amazement, she
led off the hilarity back-stage. Frank was in her mind at that moment,
as he had been all the evening; her zestful enjoyment of the affair was
heightened by the thought that she could help him forget his troubles
for a little while by the story she would carry to him. Then she and the
others in the group heard the piercing squeals of a man's voice.

"Somebody has got hystierucks out of it, and I don't blame him," stated
the manager of the show. He grabbed the handle of the winch and began to
let down the curtain. "I reckon the only sensible thing to do is to let
Brook Number One and Brook Number Two take the curtain call."

Then Dorsey's shrill insistence prevailed over the roars of laughter in
front; the young folks on the stage heard his bloodcurdling