the furious
selectman with cold, gray and critical eyes.

"Your suggestion as to destination is not well considered," he said.
"There is no hell. There is no heaven. I practically settled that
point the first time I died. The--"

Cap'n Sproul, without especial attention to this astonishing
announcement, was provoked beyond control by this stranger's
contemptuous stare. He grabbed up an ash-stick that served him for
a stove-poker.

"Get out of here," he repeated, "or I'll peg you down through this
floor like a spike!"

But the thin man simply gazed at him mournfully and sat down.

"Havin' been killed three times--three times--dead by violent
means," he said, "I have no fear of death. Strike me--I shall not
resist."

Even a bashi-bazouk must have quailed before that amazing
declaration and that patient resignation to fate. Cap'n Sproul
looked him up and down for many minutes and then tucked the smutty
ash-stick under the stove.

"Well, what insane horsepittle did you get out of by crawlin' through
the keyhole?" he demanded.

"Oh, I am not insane," remonstrated the thin man. "It is always easy
for fools in this world to blat that insult when a man announces
something that they don't understand. A man that knows enough to be
selectman of Smyrna hadn't ought to be a fool. I hope you are not.
But you mustn't blat like a fool."

Cap'n Sproul could not seem to frame words just then.

"The first time I died," pursued his remarkable guest, "I was frozen
to death." He pulled up his trousers and showed a shank as shrunken
as a peg-leg. "All the meat came off. The second time I died, a hoss
kicked me on the head. The third time, a tree fell on me. And there
is no hell--there is no heaven. If there had been I'd have gone to
one place or the other."

"If I was runnin' either place you wouldn't," said the Cap'n, sourly.

The thin man crossed his legs and was beginning to speak, but the
first selectman broke in savagely: "Now look here, mister, this ain't
either a morgue, a receivin'-tomb, nor an undertaker's parlor. If
you want to get buried and ain't got the price I'll lend it to you.
If you want to start over again in life I'll pay for havin' your
birth-notice put into the newspaper. But you want to say what you
do want and get out of here. I've got some town business to 'tend
to, and I ain't got any time to spend settin' up with corpses."

Again the man tried to speak. Again the Cap'n interrupted. "I ain't
disput