When Louise mounted the porch steps she could not easily pass the expressman, who was saying, in drawling tones: 

“Well, I brought it over, seeing I had a light load.  I didn’t know what else to do with it.  Of course, it was Cap’n Abe give it to me to ship.  Let’s see, I didn’t happen to see you here that night you came, an’ I brought the young lady’s trunks over, did I?”

“Not as I know on,” barked Cap’n Amazon with brevity.

“Funny how we didn’t meet then,” drawled Perry Baker.

There seemed to be a tenseness to the atmosphere of the old store.  Louise saw the usual idlers gathered about the cold stove—­Washy Gallup on his nail-keg, his jaw wagging eagerly; Milt Baker and Amiel Perdue side by side with their elbows on the counter; Cap’n Joab Beecher leaning forward on his stick—­all watching Cap’n Amazon, it seemed, with strained attention.

It was like a scene set for a play—­for the taking of a film, perhaps.  The whimsical thought came to Louise that the director had just shouted:  “Get set!” and would immediately add:  “Action!  Camera!  Go!”

“Course,” Perry Baker drawled, “I sent it to Boston as consigner, myself; so when the chest warn’t called for within a reasonable time they shipped it back to me, knowin’ I was agent.  Funny Cap’n Abe didn’t show up for to claim it.”

Cap’n Amazon, grim as a gargoyle, leaned upon the counter and stared the expressman out of countenance, saying nothing.  Perry shifted uneasily in the doorway.  The captain’s silence and his stare were becoming irksome to bear.

“Well!” he finally ejaculated, “that’s how ‘tis.  I’d ha’ waited till—­till Cap’n Abe come home—­if he ever does come; but my wife, Huldy, got fidgety.  She reads the papers, and she’s got it into her head there’s something wrong ’bout the old chest.  She dreamed ’bout it.  An’ ye know, when a woman gets to dreamin’ she’ll drag her anchors, no matter what the bottom is.  She says folks have been murdered ’fore now and their bodies crammed into a chest——­”

“Why, you long-winded sculpin!” exclaimed Cap’n Amazon, at length goaded to speech.  “Bring that chest in and take a reef in your jaw-tackle.  I knew a man once’t looked nigh enough like you to be your twin; and he was purt nigh a plumb idiot, too.”

Louise had never before heard her uncle’s voice so sharp.  It was plain he had not seen his niece until after Perry Baker turned and clumped out upon the porch, thus giving the girl free entrance to the store.  She turned, smiling a little whimsically, and said to Bane: 

“The moment is not propitious, I fear.  Uncle Amazon seems to be put out about something.”

“Don’t bother him now, I beg,” urged the actor, lifting his hat.  “I will call later—­if I may.”

“Certainly, Mr. Bane,” she said with seriousness.  “Uncle Amazon and I will both be glad to see you.”

The expressman came heavily up the steps with a green chest on his shoulder.  It had handles of tarred rope and had plainly seen much service; indeed, it was brother to the box in the storeroom which Louise had found filled with nautical literature.