p tureen in the
closet and fetched it and showed it to him. 'There!' says I. 'There's
your drink, Zach Bloomer,' says I. 'Now hand over my five cents.' 'Hold
on, Posy,' he says, 'hold on. I said a drink. There ain't a drink in
that bottle.' 'Go 'long,' says I, 'the bottle's half full.' But he stuck
it out there wasn't a drink in it and afore he'd pay me my bet he had to
prove it to himself. Even then, after he'd swallowed the whole of it,
he vowed and declared there wasn't a real drink. But he had to hand over
the five cents.... And--and that's how I know," concluded Primmie, "that
there ain't any cherry rum in the house, Miss Martha."

Miss Phipps' remarks on the subject of the wily Mr. Bloomer and the rum
drove the thoughts of Mr. Bangs' odd behavior from the mind of her maid.
But the consciousness of conspiracy was always present with Galusha, try
as he might to forget it. And he was constantly being reminded--of it.
Down at the post office at mail time he would feel his coat-tail pulled
and looking up would see the face of Mr. Pulcifer solemnly gazing
over his head at the rows of letter boxes. Apparently Raish was quite
unconscious of the little man's presence, but there would come another
tug at the coat-tail and a barely perceptible jerk of the Pulcifer head
toward the door.

Feeling remarkably like a fool, Galusha would follow to the front steps
of the post office. There Raish would suddenly and, in a tone of joyful
surprise, quite as if they had not met for years, seize his hand, pump
it up and down and ask concerning his health, the health of the Gould's
Bluffs colony and the "news down yonder." Then, gazing blandly up the
road at nothing in particular, he would add, speaking in a whisper and
from the corner of his mouth: "Comin' along, Perfessor. She's a-comin'
along. Keep your ear out for signals.... What say? Why, no, I don't
think it does look as much like rain as it did, Mr. Bangs."

One evening Galusha, entering the Phipps' sitting room, found Lulie
there. She and Martha were in earnest conversation and the girl was
plainly much agitated. He was hurriedly withdrawing, but Miss Phipps
called him back.

"Come in, Mr. Bangs," she said. "I think Lulie would like to talk to
you. She said she would."

"Yes. Yes, I would, Mr. Bangs," put in Lulie, herself. "Could you spare
just a minute or two?"

Galusha cheerfully avowed that he had so many spare minutes that he did
not know what to do with them.

"If