“Well, I wonder who’ll be the next couple,” speculated Obed.  “First Polena and old Hardee, then Gertie Higgins and Sam Bartlett!  I declare, Sim, gettin’ married unbeknownst to anybody must be catchin’, like the measles.  Nobody’s safe unless they’ve got a wife or husband livin’.  Me and Sol Berry are old baches—­we’d better get vaccinated or we may come down with the disease.  Ho! ho!”

After dinner Mr. Phinney went from his home to the depot.  Captain Sol was sitting in the ticket office, with the door shut.  On the platform, forlornly sprawled upon the baggage truck, was Issy McKay, the picture of desolation.  He started nervously when he heard Simeon’s step.  As yet Issy’s part in the Bartlett-Higgins episode was unknown to the townspeople.  Sam and Gertie had considerately kept silence.  Beriah had not learned who sent him the warning note, the unlucky missive which had brought his troubles to a climax.  But he was bound to learn it, he would find out soon, and then—­No wonder Issy groaned.

“Come in here, Sim,” said the depot master.  Phinney entered the ticket office.

“Shut the door,” commanded the Captain.  The order was obeyed.  “Well, what is it?” asked Berry.

“Why, I just run in to see you a minute, Sol, that’s all.  What are you shut up in here all alone for?”

“’Cause I want to be alone.  There’s been more than a thousand folks in this depot so far to-day, seems so, and they all wanted to talk.  I don’t feel like talkin’.”

“Heard about Gertie Higgins and—­”

“Yes.”

“Who told you?”

“Hiram Baker told me first.  He’s a fine feller and he’s so tickled, now that his youngster’s ‘most well, that he cruises around spoutin’ talk and joy same as a steamer’s stack spouts cinders.  He told me.  Then Obed Gott and Cornelius Rowe and Redny Blount and Pat Starkey, and land knows how many more, came to tell me.  I cut ’em short.  Why, even the Major himself condescended to march in, grand and imposin’ as a procession, to make proclamations about love laughin’ at locksmiths, and so on.  Since he got Polena and her bank account he’s a bigger man than the President, in his own estimate.”

“Humph!  Well, he better make the best of it while it lasts.  P’lena ain’t Hetty Green, and her money won’t hold out forever.”

“That’s a fact.  Still Polena’s got sense.  She’ll hold Hardee in check, I cal’late.  I wouldn’t wonder if it ended by her bossin’ things and the Major actin’ as a sort of pet poodle dog—­nice and pretty to walk out with, but always kept at the end of a string.”

“You didn’t go to Higgins’s for dinner to-day, did you?”

“No.  Nor I shan’t go for supper.  Beriah’s bad enough when he’s got nothin’ the matter with him but dyspepsy.  Now that his sufferin’s are complicated with elopements, I don’t want to eat with him.”

“Come and have supper with us.”

“I guess not, thank you, Sim.  I’ll get some crackers and cheese and such at the store.  I—­I ain’t very hungry these days.”