“You blundering, God-forsaken ass!” he enunciated.

That seemed to cheer him up quite a bit, for he turned away from the mirror with a less hopeless expression on his face and began to unpack his valise and distribute the contents about the room.  Later he borrowed some of Zephania’s hot water from the singing kettle and shaved himself.  No matter to what depths of degradation a man may fall, shaving invariably raises him again to a fair level of self-respect.  He ate luncheon with a good appetite, and then wandered down to Prout’s Store, ostensibly to ask if his trunk had arrived, but in reality to satisfy a craving for human intercourse.  The trunk had not come, Mr. Prout informed him, but, as Wade couldn’t well expect it before the morning, he wasn’t disappointed.  He purchased one of Mr. Prout’s best cigars—­price one nickel—­and sat himself on the counter.

“Yes,” said Mr. Prout, “them two houses is a good deal alike.  In fact I guess they’re just alike.  Anyway, old Colonel Selden Phelps built ’em alike, an’ I guess they ain’t been much changed.  I recollect my mother tellin’ how the old Colonel had them two houses built.  The Colonel lived over near Redding and folks used to say he was land-crazy.  Every cent the Colonel would get hold of he’d up an’ buy another tract of land with it.  Owned more land hereabouts than you could find on the county map, and they say he never had enough to eat in the house from one year’s end to t’other.  Family half starved most of the time, so they used to tell.  The boy, Nathan, he up an’ said he couldn’t stand it; said he might’s well be a Roman Catholic, because then he would be certain of a full meal once in awhile, but as it was every day was fast day.  So he run away down to Boston an’ became a sailor.  The Colonel never saw him again, because he was lost at sea on his second voyage.  That just left the two girls, Mary and Evelyn.  My mother used to say that every one pitied them two girls mightily.  Always looked thin and peaked, they did, while as for Mrs. Phelps, why, folks said she just starved to death.  Anyway, she died soon after Nathan was drowned.  Just to show how pesky mean the old Colonel was, Mr. Herrick, they tell how one night the women folks was sewing in the sittin’-room.  Seems they was workin’ on some mighty particular duds and Mrs. Phelps had lighted an extra candle; the Colonel never would allow a lamp in his house.  Well, there they was sittin’ with the two candles burnin’ when in stomps the Colonel.  ‘Hey,’ says he, blowin’ out one of the candles, ’what’s all this blaze of light?  Want to ruin your eyes?

“Folks liked the Colonel, too, spite of his meanness.  He was a great church man, an’ more’n half supported the Baptist church over there.  Seemed as if he was willin’ to give money to the Lord an’ no one else, not even his own family.  Mary was the first of the girls to get married, she bein’ the eldest.  She married George Craig, from over Portsmouth way, an’—­”