“Well, how are you, captain?” said Lee, speaking with an air of defiant importance.  It became evident that what had gone before was to be ignored by everybody except Tappan, who suddenly rose and went out, muttering something which nobody heard.  Then the lash of a whip was heard outside, a “g’lang,” with the impetus of an oath, and a milk wagon clattered down the street.

Carroll replied to Lee, urbanely:  “Fine,” he said, “fine.  How are you, Mr. Lee?”

“Seems to me you are not looking quite up to the mark,” Lee remarked, surveying him with friendly solicitude.

The little barber had returned to Amidon in the chair, and was carefully scraping his cheek with the razor.

“Then my looks belie me,” Carroll replied, smiling.  He offered a cigar to Lee and to the druggist, who sat next on the other side.

“Been out of town?” asked the druggist.

“Yes,” replied Carroll.

Drake looked at him hesitatingly, but Amidon, speaking stiffly and cautiously, put the question directly:  “Where you been, cap’n?”

“A little journey on business,” Carroll answered, easily, lighting his cigar.

“When did you get home?” asked Amidon.

“This morning.”

“You certainly look as if you had lost flesh,” said Lee, with obsequious solicitude.

“Well, it is a hard journey to Chicago—­quite a hard journey,” remarked the druggist, with cunning.

“Not on the fast train,” said Carroll.

“So you went on the flyer?” said the postmaster.

Carroll was having some difficulty in lighting his cigar, and did not reply.

“Did you go on the flyer?” persisted the postmaster.

“No, I did not,” replied Carroll, with unmistakable curtness.

The postmaster hemmed to conceal embarrassment.  He had been shaved and had only lingered for a bit of gossip, and now the church-bells began to ring, and he was going to church, as were also Lee, the druggist, and most of the others.  They rose and lounged out, one after another; little Willy Eddy followed them.  Flynn finished shaving Amidon, who also left, and finally he was left alone in the shop with Carroll, who arose and approached the chair.

“Sorry to keep you waitin’, Captain Carroll,” said Flynn, preparing a lather with enthusiasm.

“The day is before me,” said Carroll, as he seated himself.

“I hope,” said Flynn, beating away his hand in a bowl of mounting rainbow bubbles—­“I hope that—­that—­your feelings were not hurt at—­at—­our eavesdropping.”

“At what?” asked Carroll, kindly and soberly.

“At our eavesdropping,” reported the barber, with a worshipful and agitated glance at him.

“Oh!” answered Carroll, but he did not smile.  “No,” he said, “my feelings were not hurt.”  He looked at the small man who was the butt of the town, and his expression was almost caressing.

Flynn continued to beat away at the lather, and the rainbow bubbles curled over the edge of the bowl.  “You said that you would devise me when the time had come for me to invest that money,” he said, diffidently, and yet with a noble air of confidence and loyalty.