“And you say,” said the Secretary, “the old black man has been going by here alone?  Patty, suppose old Poquelin should be concocting some mischief; he don’t lack provocation; the way that clod hit him the other day was enough to have killed him.  Why, Patty, he dropped as quick as that!  No wonder you haven’t seen him.  I wonder if they haven’t heard something about him up at the drug-store.  Suppose I go and see.”

“Do,” said his wife.

She sat alone for half an hour, watching that sudden going out of the day peculiar to the latitude.

“That moon is ghost enough for one house,” she said, as her husband returned.  “It has gone right down the chimney.”

“Patty,” said little White, “the drug-clerk says the boys are going to shivaree old Poquelin to-night.  I’m going to try to stop it.”

“Why, White,” said his wife, “you’d better not.  You’ll get hurt.”

“No, I’ll not.”

“Yes, you will.”

“I’m going to sit out here until they come along.  They’re compelled to pass right by here.”

“Why, White, it may be midnight before they start; you’re not going to sit out here till then.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, you’re very foolish,” said Mrs. White in an undertone, looking anxious, and tapping one of the steps with her foot.

They sat a very long time talking over little family matters.

“What’s that?” at last said Mrs. White.

“That’s the nine-o’clock gun,” said White, and they relapsed into a long-sustained, drowsy silence.

“Patty, you’d better go in and go to bed,” said he at last.

“I’m not sleepy.”

“Well, you’re very foolish,” quietly remarked little White, and again silence fell upon them.

“Patty, suppose I walk out to the old house and see if I can find out any thing.”

“Suppose,” said she, “you don’t do any such—­listen!”

Down the street arose a great hubbub.  Dogs and boys were howling and barking; men were laughing, shouting, groaning, and blowing horns, whooping, and clanking cow-bells, whinnying, and howling, and rattling pots and pans.

“They are coming this way,” said little White.  “You had better go into the house, Patty.”

“So had you.”

“No.  I’m going to see if I can’t stop them.”

“Why, White!”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” said White, and went toward the noise.

In a few moments the little Secretary met the mob.  The pen hesitates on the word, for there is a respectable difference, measurable only on the scale of the half century, between a mob and a charivari.  Little White lifted his ineffectual voice.  He faced the head of the disorderly column, and cast himself about as if he were made of wood and moved by the jerk of a string.  He rushed to one who seemed, from the size and clatter of his tin pan, to be a leader. “Stop these fellows, Bienvenu, stop them just a minute, till I tell them something.”  Bienvenu turned and brandished his instruments of discord in an imploring way to the crowd.  They slackened their pace, two or three hushed their horns and joined the prayer of little White and Bienvenu for silence.  The throng halted.  The hush was delicious.