“You lie!”

“What?  Why, you little sawed-off, dried-up, sassy son of a sea cook!  I’ll—­”

Winslow’s lanky form was interposed between the pair; and his slow, gentle drawl made itself heard.

“I’m sorry to interrupt the experience meetin’,” he said, “but I’ve got a call to testify and I feel the spirit aworkin’.  Set down again, Sam, will you please.  Phineas, you set down over there.  Please set down, both of you.  Sam, as a favor to me—­”

But the captain was not in a favor-extending mood.  He glowered at his adversary and remained standing.

“Phin—­” begged Winslow.  But Mr. Babbitt, although a trifle paler than when he entered the shop, was not more yielding.

“I’m particular who I set down along of,” he declared.  “I’d as soon set down with a—­a rattlesnake as I would with some humans.”

Captain Sam was not pale, far from it.

“Skunks are always afraid of snakes, they tell me,” he observed, tartly.  “A rattlesnake’s honest, anyhow, and he ain’t afraid to bite.  He ain’t all bad smell and nothin’ else.”

Babbitt’s bristling chin beard quivered with inarticulate hatred.  Winslow sighed resignedly.

“Well,” he asked, “you don’t mind the other—­er—­critter in the menagerie sittin’, do you?  Now—­now—­now, just a minute,” he pleaded, as his two companions showed symptoms of speaking simultaneously.  “Just a minute; let me say a word.  Phineas, I judge the only reason you have for objectin’ to the captain’s bein’ on the Exemption Board is on account of your son, ain’t it?  It’s just on Leander’s account?”

But before the furious Mr. Babbitt could answer there came another interruption.  The bell attached to the door of the outer shop rang once more.  Jed, who had accepted his own invitation to sit, rose again with a groan.

“Now I wonder who that is?” he drawled, in mild surprise.

Captain Hunniwell’s frayed patience, never noted for long endurance, snapped again.  “Gracious king! go and find out,” he roared.  “Whoever ’tis ’ll die of old age before you get there.”

The slow smile drifted over Mr. Winslow’s face.  “Probably if I wait and give ’em a chance they’ll come in here and have apoplexy instead,” he said.  “That seems to be the fashionable disease this afternoon.  They won’t stay out there and be lonesome; they’ll come in here where it’s private and there’s a crowd.  Eh?  Yes, here they come.”

But the newest visitor did not come, like the others, uninvited into the “private” room.  Instead he knocked on its door.  When Winslow opened it he saw a small boy with a yellow envelope in his hand.

“Hello, Josiah,” hailed Jed, genially.  “How’s the president of the Western Union these days?”

The boy grinned bashfully and opined the magnate just mentioned was “all right.”  Then he added: 

“Is Mr. Babbitt here?  Mr. Bearse—­Mr. Gabe Bearse—­is over at the office and he said he saw Mr. Babbitt come in here.”