If I catch you off’m these primises I’ll bat your old ears and have you arrested for a tramp.  You ain’t northin’ else, when it comes to law.  I’m a hard man when I’m madded, Crymble, and if I start in to keelhaul you for disobeyin’ orders you’ll—­” The Cap’n did not complete the sentence, but he bent such a look on the man in the chair that he trembled through all his frail length.

“I wisht I could have stayed dead,” whimpered Mr. Crymble, thoroughly spirit-broken.

“It might have been better all around,” agreed the Cap’n, cheerfully.  “But I ain’t no undertaker.  I’m a town official, sworn to see that paupers ain’t poked off onto the taxpayers.  And if you want to keep out of some pretty serious legal trouble, Mis’ Crymble, you’ll mind your p’s and q’s—­and you know what I mean!”

Feeling a little ignorant of just what the law was in the case, Cap’n Sproul chose to make his directions vague and his facial expression unmistakable, and he backed out, bending impartial and baleful stare on the miserable couple.

When he got back to the town office he pen-printed a sign, “Keep Out,” tacked it upon the outer door, set the end of his long table against the door for a barricade, and fell to undisturbed work on the figures.  And having made such progress during the day that his mind was free for other matters in the evening, he trudged over to Neighbor Hiram Look’s to smoke with the ex-showman and detail to that wondering listener the astonishing death-claims of the returned Mr. Crymble.

“Grampy Long-legs, there, may think he’s dead and may say he’s dead,” remarked Hiram, grimly, “but it looks to me as though Bat Reeves was the dead one in this case.  He’s lost the widder.”

Cap’n Sproul turned luminous gaze of full appreciation on his friend.

“Hiram,” he said, “we’ve broke up a good many courtships for Reeves, you and me have, but, speakin’ frankly, I’d have liked to see him get that Crymble woman.  If she ain’t blood kin to the general manager of Tophet, then I’m all off in pedigree, I don’t blame Crymble for dyin’ three times to make sure that she was a widder.  If it wasn’t for administerin’ town business right I’d have got him a spider-web and let him sail away on it.  As it is, I reckon I’ve scared him about twenty-four hours’ worth.  He’ll stick there in torment for near that time.  But about noon to-morrow he’ll get away unless I scare him again or ball-and-chain him with a thread and a buckshot.”

“I’m interested in freaks,” said Hiram, “and I’ll take this case off your hands and see that the livin’ skeleton don’t get away until we decide to bury him or put him in a show where he can earn an honest livin’.  Skeletons ain’t what they used to be for a drawin’-card, but I know of two or three punkin circuiters that might take him on.”

In view of that still looming incubus of the unfinished town report, Cap’n Sproul accepted Hiram’s offer with alacrity.