“I’m a right smart stiffer than I’d been ef I’d stayed South,” replied Amidon.

Then the postmaster wondered, as Mrs. Anderson had done, why Major Arms was driving up with Samson Rawdy rather than in the Carroll carriage, and the others opined, as Randolph had done, that they had not expected him.

“I don’t see, for my part, what they get to feed him on when he comes,” said Amidon, wisely.

The postmaster and Drake looked at him with expressions like hunting-dogs, although a certain wisdom as to his meaning was evident in both faces.

“I suppose it’s getting harder and harder for them to get credit,” said Drake.

“Harder,” returned Amidon.  “I guess it is.  I had it from Strauss this morning, that he wouldn’t let them have a pound of beef without cash, and I know that Abbot stopped giving them anything some time ago.”

“How do they manage, then?” asked the postmaster.

“Strauss says sometimes they send a little money and get a little, the rest of the time he guesses they go without; live on garden-sauce—­they’ve got a little garden, you know, or grocery stuff.”

“Can they get trusted at the grocer’s?”

“Ingram won’t trust ’em, but Anderson lets ’em have all they want, they say.”

“S’pose he knows what he’s about.”

“Lawyers generally do,” said Drake.

“He wasn’t much of a lawyer, anyhow,” said Amidon.

“That’s so.  He didn’t set the river afire,” remarked the postmaster.

“I don’t believe, if Anderson trusts him, but he knows what he is about,” said the druggist.  “I guess he knows he’s goin’ to get his pay.”

“Mebbe some of those fine securities of his will come up sometime,” Amidon said.  “I heard they’d been slumpin’ lately.  Guess there’s some Banbridge folks got hit pretty bad, too.”

“Who?” asked Drake, eagerly.

“I heard Lee was in it, for one, and I guess there’s others.  I must light out of this.  It’s dinner-time.  Where’s that arrow-root?  My wife’s got to make arrow-root gruel for old Mrs. Joy.  She’s dreadful poorly.  Oh, there it is!”

Amidon started, and the postmaster also.  In the doorway Amidon paused.  “Suppose you knew Carroll was away?” he said.

“No,” said Drake.

“Yes, he’s been gone a week; ain’t coming home till the day before the wedding.  Their girl told ours.  We’ve got a Hungarian, too, you know.  Carroll’s girl can’t get any pay.  It’s a dam’ed shame.”

“Why don’t she leave?”

“Afraid she’ll lose it all, if she does.  Same way with the coachman.”

“Where’s Carroll gone?” asked the postmaster.

“Don’t know.  The girl said he’d gone to Chicago on business.”

“Guess he’ll want to go farther than Chicago on business if he don’t look out, before long.  I don’t see how he’s goin’ to have the weddin’, anyway.  I don’t believe anybody ’ll trust him here, and, unless I miss my guess, he won’t find it very easy anywhere else.”