for Samuel speculated in stocks a good deal and there were seasons when he was so near bankruptcy that gossip declared he could not pass the poorhouse without shivering.  If it had not been for his brother Bailey, so that same gossip affirmed, he would most assuredly have gone under, but Bailey lent him money and helped him in many ways.  Both brothers were widowers and each had a son; but Samuel’s boy Erastus was fifteen years older than John.

The families moved from Wellmouth when John was six years old.  They went West and there, so it was said, the positions of the brothers changed.  Samuel’s luck turned; he made some fortunate stock deals and became wealthy.  Bailey, however, lost all he had in bad mining ventures and sank almost to poverty.  Both had been dead for years now, but Samuel’s son, Erastus—­he much preferred to be called E. Holliday Kendrick—­was a man of consequence in New York, a financier, with offices on Broad Street and a home on Fifth Avenue.  John, the East Wellmouth people had last heard of as having worked his way through college and law school and as practicing his profession in the big city.

So much Captain Bangs knew.  And John Kendrick told him the rest.  The road to success for a young attorney in New York he had found hard and discouraging.  For two years he had trodden it and scarcely earned enough to keep himself alive.  Now he had decided, or practically decided, to give up the attempt, select some small town or village and try his luck there.  East Wellmouth was the one village he knew and remembered with liking.  So to East Wellmouth he had come, to, as Captain Obed described it, “take soundin’s and size up the fishin’ grounds.”

“So there you are, Captain,” he said, in conclusion.  “That is why I am here.”

The captain nodded reflectively.

“Um—­yes,” he said.  “I see; I see.  Well, well; and you’re figgerin’ on bein’ a lawyer here—­in East Wellmouth?”

Mr. Kendrick nodded also.  “It may, and probably will be, pretty close figuring at first,” he admitted, “but at least there will be no more ciphers in the sum than there were in my Manhattan calculations.  Honestly now, Captain Bangs, tell me—­what do you think of the idea?”

The captain seemed rather dubious.

“Humph!” he grunted.  “Well, I don’t know, John.  East Wellmouth ain’t a very big place.”

“I know that.  Of course I shouldn’t hope to do much in East Wellmouth alone.  But it seemed to me I might do as other country lawyers have done, have an office—­or a desk—­in several other towns and be in those towns on certain days in the week.  I think I should like to live in East Wellmouth, though.  It is—­not to be sentimental but just truthful—­the one place I remember where I was really happy.  And, as I remember too, there used to be no lawyer there.”

Captain Obed’s forehead puckered.

“That’s just it, John,” he said.  “There is a lawyer here now.  Good deal of a lawyer, too—­if you ask him.  Name’s Heman Daniels.  You used to know him as a boy, didn’t you?”