But the person who had entered the outer shop saved Mr. Bearse the trouble.  He, too, disregarded the “Private” sign on the door of the inner room.  Before Gabriel could reach it that door was thrown open and the newcomer entered.  He was a big man, gray-mustached, with hair a grizzled red, and with blue eyes set in a florid face.  The hand which had opened the door looked big and powerful enough to have knocked a hole in it, if such a procedure had been necessary.  And its owner looked quite capable of doing it, if he deemed it necessary, in fact he looked as if he would rather have enjoyed it.  He swept into the room like a northwest breeze, and two bundles of wooden strips, cut to the size of mill arms, clattered to the floor as he did so.

“Hello, Jed!” he hailed, in a voice which measured up to the rest of him.  Then, noticing Mr. Bearse for the first time, he added:  “Hello, Gabe, what are you doin’ here?”

Gabriel hastened to explain.  His habitual desire to please and humor each person he met—­each person of consequence, that is; very poor people or village eccentrics like Jed Winslow did not much matter, of course—­was in this case augmented by a particular desire to please Captain Sam Hunniwell.  Captain Sam, being one of Orham’s most influential men, was not, in Mr. Bearse’s estimation, at all the sort of person whom it was advisable to displease.  He might—­and did—­talk disparagingly of him behind his back, as he did behind the back of every one else, but he smiled humbly and spoke softly in his presence.  The consciousness of having just been talking of him, however, of having visited that shop for the express purpose of talking about him, made the explaining process a trifle embarrassing.

“Oh, howd’ye do, howd’ye do, Cap’n Hunniwell?” stammered Gabriel.  “Nice day, ain’t it, sir?  Yes, sir, ’tis a nice day.  I was just—­ er—­that is, I just run in to see Shavin’s here; to make a little call, you know.  We was just settin’ here talkin’, wan’t we, Shavin’s—­Jed, I mean?”

Mr. Winslow stood his completed sailor man in a rack to dry.

“Ya-as,” he drawled, solemnly, “that was about it, I guess.  Have a chair, Sam, won’t you? . . .  That was about it, we was sittin’ and talkin’ . . .  I was sittin’ and Gab—­Gabe, I mean—­was talkin’.”

Captain Sam chuckled.  As Winslow and Mr. Bearse were occupying the only two chairs in the room he accepted the invitation in its broad sense and, turning an empty box upon end, sat down on that.

“So Gabe was talkin’, eh?” he repeated.  “Well, that’s singular.  How’d that happen, Gabe?”

Mr. Bearse looked rather foolish.  “Oh, we was just—­just talkin’ about—­er—­this and that,” he said, hastily.  “Just this and that, nothin’ partic’lar.  Cal’late I’ll have to be runnin’ along now, Jed.”

Jed Winslow selected a new and unpainted sailor from the pile near him.  He eyed it dreamily.