“Call names!  Of course she didn’t call names.  Didn’t have to.  There’s the difference between scandal and occultin’.  We can’t get no bind on her for what she said.  Now here are you and me, back here to settle down after roamin’ the wide world over; jest got our feet placed, as you might say, and new married to good wimmen—­and because we’re a little forehanded and independent, and seem to be enjoyin’ life, every one is all ready to believe the worst about us on general principles.  Mossbacks are always ready to believe that a man that’s travelled any has been raising seventeen kinds of tophet all his life.  All she had to do was go into a trance, talk a little Injun, and then hint enough to set their imaginations to workin’ about us.  Up to now, judgin’ by the way she’s been lookin’ at me, my wife believes I’ve got seven wives strewed around the country somewhere, either alive or buried in cellars.  As to your wife, you bein’ a seafarin’ character, she’s prob’ly got it figgered that a round-up of your fam’ly circle, admittin’ all that’s got a claim on you, would range all the way from a Hindu to a Hottentot, and would look like a congress of nations.  In about two days more—­imagination still workin’, and a few old she devils in this place startin’ stories to help it along—­our wives will be hoppin’ up every ten minutes to look down the road and see if any of the victims have hove in sight.  And what can we do?”

Hiram lunged a vigorous kick straight before him.

“Find me that hole I just made in the air and I’ll tell you, Cap’n,” he added, with bitter irony.

“It’s—­it’s worse than what I figgered on,” remarked the Cap’n, despondently, after a thoughtful pause.  “If a woman like Louada Murilla will let herself get fooled and stirred up in that kind of a way by a fly-by-night critter, there ain’t much hope of the rest of the neighborhood.”

“It’s a kind of lyin’ that there ain’t no fightin’,” Hiram asserted.  “And there are certain ones in this place that will keep it in the air.  Now I didn’t sass that mesmerist.  But I got it about as tough as you did.  I’ll bet a thousand to one that Bat Reeves is gettin’ back at me for cuttin’ him out with the widder.  It’s reasonable,” he declared, warming to the topic and checking items off on his stubby fingers.  “Here’s your mesmerist rushin’ hot to Reeves complainin’ about you and gettin’ a permit from Reeves, along with a few pointers about you for occult use.  Reeves hates you bad enough, but he hates me worse.  And he sees to it that I get occulted, too.  He ain’t lettin’ a chance like that slip past as soon as that perfessor lets him see what occultin’ will do to a man.  Why, condemn his hide and haslet, I believe he swapped that permit for a dose of so much occultin’—­and I’ve got the dose.”