“‘Ahoy, Sim!  What’s the hurry?  Anybody on fire?’

“‘Twas the Cap’n himself, settin’ on a pile of movin’ joist and smokin’ as usual.  I didn’t waste no time.

“‘Sol,’ says I, ’I’ve just come from Olive’s.  She’s got that letter from the Omaha man.  Poor thing! all alone there—­’

“He interrupted me sharp.  ‘Well?’ he snaps.  ’What’s it say?  Will the cousin help her?’

“‘No,’ I says, ‘drat him, he won’t!’

“The answer I got surprised me more’n anything I ever heard or ever will hear.

“‘Thank God!’ says Sol Berry.  ‘That settles it.’

“And I swan to man if he didn’t climb down off them timbers and march straight across the street, over to the door of Olive Edwards’s home, open it, and go in!  I leaned against the joist he’d left, and swabbed my forehead with my sleeve.”

“He went to her!” gasped Mrs. Phinney.

“Wait,” continued her husband.  “I must have stood there twenty minutes when I heard somebody hurryin’ down the Boulevard.  ’Twas Cornelius Rowe, all red-faced and het up, but bu’stin’ with news.

“‘’Lo, Sim!’ says he to me.  ‘Is Cap’n Sol home?  Does he know?’

“’Know?  Know what?” says I.

“’Why, the trick Mr. Williams put up on him?  Hey?  You ain’t heard?  Well, Mr. Williams’s fixed him nice, he has!  Seems Abner Payne hadn’t answered Sol’s letter tellin’ him he’d accept the offer to swap lots, and Williams went up to Wareham where Payne’s been stayin’ and offered him a thumpin’ price for the land on Main Street, and took it.  The deed’s all made out.  Cap’n Sol can’t move where he was goin’ to, and he’s left with his house on the town, as you might say.  Ain’t it a joke, though?  Where is Sol?  I want to be the fust to tell him and see how he acts.  Is he to home?’

“I was shook pretty nigh to pieces, but I had some sense left.

“‘No, he ain’t,’ says I.  ‘I see him go up street a spell ago.’”

“Why, Simeon!” interrupted Mrs. Phinney once more.  “Was that true?  How could you see him when—­”

“Be still!  S’pose I was goin’ to tell him where Sol had gone?  I’d have lied myself blue fust.  However, Cornelius was satisfied.

“‘That so?’ he grunts.  ‘By jings!  I’m goin’ to find him.’

“Off he went, and the next thing I knew the Edwards door opened, and I heard somebody callin’ my name.  I went acrost, walkin’ in a kind of daze, and there, in the doorway, with the lamp shinin’ on ’em, was Cap’n Sol and Olive.  The tears was wet on her cheeks, but she was smilin’ in a kind of shy, half-believin’ sort of way, and as for Sol, he was one broad, satisfied grin.

“‘Cap’n,’ I begun, ‘I just heard the everlastin’est news that—­’

“‘Shut up, Sim!’ he orders, cheerful.  ’You’ve been a mighty good friend to both of us, and I want you to be the fust to shake hands.’

“‘Shake hands?’ I stammers, lookin’ at ’em.  ‘What?  You don’t mean—­’