heard him clumping up the stairs into the upper
part of the town house.

He came back with several books in the hook of his arm and found the
two mute and not amiable. He surveyed them patronizingly, after he
had placed the books on the table.

"Gents, once when I was considerably younger and consequently
reckoned that I knew about all there was to know, not only all the
main points, but all the foot-notes, I didn't allow anybody else to
know anything. And I used to lose more or less money betting that
this and that wasn't so. Then up would come the fellow with the
cyclopedy and his facts and his figgers. At last I was so sure of
one thing that I bet a thousand on it, and a fellow hit me over the
head with every cyclopedy printed since the time Noah waited for the
mud to dry. I got my lesson! After that I took my tip from the men
that have spent time findin' out. I'm more or less of a fool now,
but before that I was such a fool that I didn't know that I didn't
know enough to know that I didn't know."

"What did you bet on?" inquired the Cap'n, with a gleam of interest.

"None of your business!" snapped Hiram, a red flush on his cheek.
"But if I'd paid more attention to geography in my school than I did
to tamin' toads and playin' circus I wouldn't have bet."

He opened one of the books that he had secured in his trip to the
town library.

"Now, you say offhand, Cap, that there never was such a thing as a
witch. Well, right here are the figgers to show that between 1482
and 1784 more than three hundred thousand wimmen were put to death
in Europe for bein' witches. There's the facts under 'Witches' in
your own town cyclopedy."

Cap'n Sproul did not appear to be convinced.

"There it is, down in black and white," persisted Hiram. "Now, how
about there never bein' any witches?" He tapped his finger on the
open page.

"If the book says that, witches must be extinker than dodos. Your
cyclopedy don't say anything about any of 'em gettin' away and comin'
over to this country, does it?"

"Of _course_ we've had 'em in this country," said Hiram, opening
another book. "Caught 'em by the dozen in Salem! Cotton Mather made
a business of it. You don't think a man like Cotton Mather is lettin'
himself be fooled on the witch question, do you? Here's the book he
wrote. A man that's as pious as Cotton Mather ain't makin' up lies
and writin' 'em down, and puttin' himself on record."

"There's just as many witches to-day as t