ought how it might be done all so quick and
handy, showin' what's on your mind, I reckon you'd better lay down
cards first," he said, significantly.

"I think it's jest a piece of snigdom by some one tryin' to hurt us,"
proceeded Hiram, boring the Cap'n with inquisitive gaze. "But you
never can tell what's what in this world, and so long as we're looking
for clues we might as well have an understandin', so's to see if
there's any such thing as two wimmen meetin' accidental and comparin'
notes and gettin' their heads together."

"None for me," said the Cap'n, but he said it falteringly.

"Well, there's none for me, either, but there's such a thing as havin'
what you've said misjudged by wimmen. Where the wimmen ain't
strong-headed, you know." He hesitated for a time, fiddling his
forefinger under his nose. "There was just one woman I made talk to
in my life such as a gent shouldn't have made without backin' it up.
If she'd been stronger in her head I reckon she'd have realized that
bein' sick, like I was, and not used to wimmen, and bein' so grateful
for all her care and attention and kindness and head-rubbin', I was
sort of took unawares, as you might say. A stronger-headed woman
would have said to herself that it wasn't to be laid up against me.
But as soon as I got to settin' up and eatin' solid food I could see
that she was sappy, and prob'ly wanted to get out of nussin' and get
married, and so she had it all written down on her nuss-diary what
I said, mixed in with temperature, pulse, and things. I--"

Cap'n Sproul's eyes had been widening, and his tongue was nervously
licking wisps of whisker between his lips.

"Was that in a Bost'n horsepittle?" he asked, with eager interest.

"That's where. In the fall three years ago. Pneumony."

"Mine was rheumatic fever two years ago," said the Cap'n. "It's what
drove me off'm deep water. She was fat, wasn't she, and had light
hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose, and used to set side
of the bed and hum: 'I'm a pilgrim, faint and weary'?"

"Damme if you didn't ring the bell with that shot!" cried the old
showman in astonishment.

"Well, it's just ditto and the same with me," said the Cap'n, rapping
his knuckles on his breast. "Same horsepittle, same nuss, same thing
generally--only when I was sickest I told her I had property wuth
about thutty thousand dollars."

"So did I," announced Hiram. "It's funny that when a man's drunk or
sick he's got to tell fi