ctory here, but he don't ask for rent
free, tax free, light free--nothin' free," said the practical
house-painter.

"What's the name again?" said Spate.

"Shelby--Luke B. Shelby," answered Pettibone. "Says he used to live here
twenty years ago. Ever hear of him? I never did."

Spate's voice came from an ambush of spectacles and whiskers: "I've
lived here all m' life--I'm sixty-three next month. I don't remember any
such man or boy."

"Me, neither," echoed Soyer, "and I'm here going on thirty-five year."

The heads shook along the line as if a wind had passed over a row of
wheat.

"It's some new dodge for sellin' stock," suspicioned One-Price Forshay,
who had a large collection of cutlery certificates.

"More likely it's just a scheme to get us talking about his Paradise
Powder. Seems to me I've had some of their circulars," said Bon-Ton
Spate.

Pettibone, the practical chairman, silenced the gossip with a brisk,
"What is the pleasure of the meeting as regards answering it?"

"I move we lay it on the table," said Eberhart of the Furniture Palace.

"I move we lay it under the table," said Forshay, who had a keen sense
of humor.

"Order, gentlemen! Order," rapped Pettibone, as the room rocked with the
laughter in which Forshay led.

When sobriety was restored it was moved, seconded, and passed that the
secretary be instructed to send Shelby a copy of the boom number of the
Wakefield _Daily Eagle_.

And in due time the homesick Ulysses, waiting a welcome from Ithaca,
received this answer to his letter:

LUKE B. SHELBY, Springfield, Mass.

SIR,--Yours of sixteenth inst. rec'd and contents noted. In reply
to same, beg to state are sending last special number _Daily
Eagle_, giving full information about city and sites.

Yours truly,

JOEL SPATE, _Secy. Exec. Comm._

Shelby winced. The hand he had held out with pearls of price had been
brushed aside. His brothers laughed.

"We said you were cracked. They don't want your old money or your
society. Go somewheres where they do."

But Luke B. Shelby had won his success by refusing to be denied, and he
had set his heart on refurbishing his old home town. The instinct of
place is stronger than any other instinct in some animals, and Shelby
was homesick for Wakefield--not for anybody, any house, or any street in
particular there, but just for Wakefield.