Part 71 (1/2)

”No. There was a hot fire. But to-day, when the second package came, I caught a glimpse of the printing on the wrapper. It was from The Psychical Research Society; I think that was it. There is such a society, isn't there?”

”I believe so. I... Ss.h.!.+ Careful, here he is.”

Captain Jethro strode across the parlor threshold. He glared beneath his heavy eyebrows at the couple.

”Lulie,” he growled, ”don't you know you're keepin' the meetin' waitin'?

You are, whether you know it or not. Martha Phipps, come in and set down. Come on, lively now!”

Martha smiled.

”Cap'n Jeth,” she said, ”you remind me of father callin' in the cat.

You must think you're aboard your old schooner givin' orders. All right, I'll obey 'em. Ay, ay, sir! Come, Lulie.”

They entered the parlor, whither Galusha, Mr. Cabot and Primmie had preceded them and were already seated. The group in the room was made up about as on the occasion of the former seance, but it was a trifle larger. The tales of the excitement on the evening when the light keeper threatened to locate and destroy the ”small, dark outsider” had spread and had attracted a few additional and hopeful souls. Mr. Obed Taylor, driver of the Trumet bake-cart, and a devout believer, had been drawn from his home village; Miss Tamson Black, her New Hamps.h.i.+re visit over, was seated in the front row; Erastus Beebe accompanied his sister Ophelia. The Hardings, Abel and Sarah B., were present and accounted for, and so, too, was Mrs. Hannah Peters.

Galusha Bangs, seated between Miss Cash and the immensely interested Cousin Gussie, gazed dully about the circle. He saw little except a blur of faces; his thoughts were elsewhere, busy in dreadful antic.i.p.ation of the scene he knew he must endure when he and his cousin and Miss Phipps returned to the house of the latter. He did not dare look in her direction, fearing to see once more upon her face the expression of suspicion which he had already seen dawning there--suspicion of him, Galusha Bangs. He sighed, and the sigh was so near a groan that his relative was startled.

”What's the matter, Galusha?” he whispered. ”Brace up, old man! you look as if you were seeing spooks already. Not sick--faint, or anything like that?”

Galusha blushed. ”Eh?” he queried. ”Oh--oh, no, no. Quite so, really.

Eh? Ah--yes.”

Cabot chuckled. ”That's a comprehensive answer, at any rate,” he observed. ”Come now, be my Who's-Who. For example, what is the name of the female under the hat like a--a steamer basket?”

Galusha looked. ”That is Miss Hoag, the--ah--medium,” he said.

”Oh, I see. Did the spirits build that hat for her?”

Miss Hoag's headgear was intrinsically the same she had worn at the former seance, although the arrangement of the fruit, flowers, sprays and other accessories was a trifle different. The red cherries, for example, no longer bobbed at the peak of the roof; they now hung jauntily from the rear eaves, so to speak. The purple grapes had also moved and peeped coyly from a thicket of moth-eaten rosebuds. The wearer of this revamped millinery triumph seemed a bit nervous, even anxious, so it seemed to Martha Phipps, who, like Cabot and Galusha, was looking at her. Marietta kept hitching in her seat, pulling at her gown, and glancing from time to time at the gloomy countenance of Captain Jethro, who, Miss Phipps also noticed, was regarding her steadily and slowly pulling at his beard. This regard seemed to add to Miss Hoag's uneasiness.

The majority of those present were staring at the senior partner of Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot. The object of the attention could not help becoming aware of it.

”What are they all looking at me for?” he demanded, under his breath.

Galusha did not hear the question, but Primmie did, and answered it.

”They don't know who you be,” she whispered.

”What of it? I don't know who they are, either.”

Miss Cash sniffed. ”Humph!” she declared, ”you wouldn't know much worth knowin' if you did--the heft of 'em.... Oh, my savin' soul, it's a-goin'

to begin! Where's my mouth organ?”

But, to her huge disappointment, her services as mouth organist were not to be requisitioned this time. Captain Hallett, taking charge of the gathering, made an announcement.

”The melodeon's been fixed,” he said, ”and Miss Black's kind enough to say she'll play it for us. Take your places, all hands. Come on, now, look alive! Tut, tut, tut! Abe Hardin', for heaven's sakes, can't you pick up your moorin's, or what does ail you? Come to anchor! Set down!”

Mr. Harding was, apparently, having trouble in sitting down. He made several nervous and hurried attempts, but none was successful. His wife begged, in one of her stage whispers, to be informed if he'd been ”struck deef.” ”Don't you hear the cap'n talkin' to you?” she demanded.

”Course I hear him,” retorted her husband, testily, and in the same comprehensively audible whisper. ”No, I ain't been struck deef--nor dumb neither.”