“Humph!” he snarled, vindictively.  “So you be here.  Gabe Bearse said you was, but I thought probably he was lyin’, as usual.  Did he lie about the other thing, that’s what I’ve come here to find out?  Sam Hunniwell, have you been put on that Draft Exemption Board?”

“Yes,” he said, curtly, “I have.”

The man trembled all over.

“You have?” he cried, raising his voice almost to a scream.

“Yes, I have.  What’s it matter to you, Phin Babbitt?  Seems to have het you up some, that or somethin’ else.”

“Het me up!  By—­” Mr. Phineas Babbitt swore steadily for a full minute.  When he stopped for breath Jed Winslow, who had stepped over and was looking out of the window, uttered an observation.

“I’m afraid I made a mistake, changin’ that sign,” he said, musingly.  “I cal’late I’ll make another:  ’Prayer meetin’s must be held outside.’”

“By—­,” began Mr. Babbitt again, but this time it was Captain Sam who interrupted.  The captain occasionally swore at other people, but he was not accustomed to be sworn at.  He, too, began to “heat up.”  He rose to his feet.

“That’ll do, Babbitt,” he commanded.  “What’s the matter with you?  Is it me you’re cussin’?  Because if it is—­”

The little Babbitt eyes snapped defiance.

“If it is, what?” he demanded.  But before the captain could reply Winslow, turning away from the window, did so for him.

“If it is, I should say ’twas a pretty complete job,” he drawled.  “I don’t know when I’ve heard fewer things left out.  You have reason to be proud, both of you.  And now, Phineas,” he went on, “what’s it all about?  What’s the matter?”

Mr. Babbitt waved his fists again, preparatory to another outburst.  Jed laid a big hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t seem to me time for the benediction yet, Phineas,” he said.  “Ought to preach your sermon or sing a hymn first, seems so.  What did you come here for?”

Phineas Babbitt’s hard gray eyes looked up into the big brown ones gazing mildly down upon him.  His gaze shifted and his tone when he next spoke was a trifle less savage.

“He knows well enough what I came here for,” he growled, indicating Hunniwell with a jerk of his thumb.  “He knows that just as well as he knows why he had himself put on that Exemption Board.”

“I didn’t have myself put there,” declared the captain.  “The job was wished on me.  Lord knows I didn’t want it.  I was just tellin’ Jed here that very thing.”

“Wished on you nothin’!  You planned to get it and you worked to get it and I know why you did it, too.  ’Twas to get another crack at me.  ’Twas to play another dirty trick on me like the one you played that cheated me out of the post office.  You knew they’d drafted my boy and you wanted to make sure he didn’t get clear.  You—­”

“That’ll do!” Captain Hunniwell seized him by the shoulder.  “That’s enough,” cried the captain.  “Your boy had nothin’ to do with it.  I never thought of his name bein’ drawn when I said I’d accept the job.”