“Gents, do you know what’s the most solemn sound in all nature?” Mr. Bodge went on.  “I heard it as I came away from my house.  It was my woman with the flour-barrel ended up and poundin’ on the bottom with the rollin’-pin to get out enough for the last batch of biscuit.  The long roll beside the graves of departed heroes ain’t so sad as that sound.  I see my oldest boy in the dooryard with the toes of his boots yawed open like sculpins’ mouths.  My daughter has outgrown her dress till she has to wear two sets of wristers to keep her arms warm—­and she looks like dressed poultry.  And as for me, I don’t dare to set down enough to get real rested, because my pants are so thin I’m afraid I can’t coax ’em along through next winter.  I’ve come to the place, gents, where I’ve give up.  I can’t fight the trusts any longer without some backin’.  I’ve got to have somebody take holt of me and get what’s in me out.  I reelize it now.  It’s in me.  Once out it will make me and all them round me rich like a—­a—­”

When Mr. Bodge halted for a simile Hiram grunted under his breath:  “Like a compost heap.”

“I was born the way I am—­with something about me that the common run of men don’t have.  How is it my brains gallop when other brains creep?  It’s that mysterious force in me.  Seein’ is believin’.  Proof is better than talkin’.  Cap’n Sproul, you just take hold of one of my whiskers and yank it out.  Take any one, so long’s it’s a good lengthy one.”

His tone was that of a sleight-of-hand man offering a pack of cards for a draw.

The Cap’n obeyed after Mr. Bodge had repeated his request several times, shoving his mat of beard out invitingly.

Mr. Bodge took the whisker from the Cap’n’s hand, pinched its butt firmly between thumb and forefinger and elevated it in front of his face.  It stuck straight up.  Then it began to bend until its tip almost touched his lips.  A moment thus and it bent in the other direction.

“There!” cried Mr. Bodge, triumphantly.  “Thomas A. Edison himself couldn’t do that with one of his whiskers.”

“You’re right,” returned Hiram, gravely.  “He’d have to borrow one.”

“A man that didn’t understand electricity and the forces of nature, and that real brains of a genius are a regular dynamo, might think that I done that with my breath.  But there is a strange power about me.  All it needs is capital to develop it.  You’ve got the capital, you gents.  This ain’t any far-away investment.  It’s right here at home.  I’m all business when it comes to business.”  He stuck up a grimy finger.  “You’ve got to concede the mysterious power because you’ve seen it for yourselves.  Now you come over to my house with me and I’ll show you a few inventions that I’ve been able to put into shape in spite of the damnable combination of the trusts.”

He slid off the porch and started away, beckoning them after him with the battered derby.

“I’ve heard ’em buzz in my time, too,” sneered Hiram, pushing back his plug hat, “but that hummin’ is about the busiest yet.  He could hold a lighted taller candle in his hand and jump off’m a roof and think he was a comet.”