In one hand the youth swung a bone-handled walking-stick, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, the other carried a yellow leather banjo-case, upon the outer side of which glittered the embossed-silver initials, “E.  B.”  He was smoking, but walked with his head up, making use, however, of a gait at that time new to Canaan, a seeming superbly irresponsible lounge, engendering much motion of the shoulders, producing an effect of carelessness combined with independence—­an effect which the innocent have been known to hail as an unconscious one.

He looked about him as he came, smilingly, with an expression of princely amusement—­as an elderly cabinet minister, say, strolling about a village where he had spent some months in his youth, a hamlet which he had then thought large and imposing, but which, being revisited after years of cosmopolitan glory, appeals to his whimsy and his pity.  The youth’s glance at the court-house unmistakably said:  “Ah, I recall that odd little box.  I thought it quite large in the days before I became what I am now, and I dare say the good townsfolk still think it an imposing structure!” With everything in sight he deigned to be amused, especially with the old faces in the “National House” windows.  To these he waved his stick with airy graciousness.

“My soul!” said Mr. Davey.  “It seems to know some of us!”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Arp, his voice recovered, “and I know it.”

“You do?” exclaimed the Colonel.

“I do, and so do you.  It’s Fanny Louden’s boy, ’Gene, come home for his Christmas holidays.”

“By George! you’re right,” cried Flitcroft; “I recognize him now.”

“But what’s the matter with him?” asked Mr. Bradbury, eagerly.  “Has he joined some patent-medicine troupe?”

“Not a bit,” replied Eskew.  “He went East to college last fall.”

“Do they make the boys wear them clothes?” persisted Bradbury.  “Is it some kind of uniform?”

“I don’t care what it is,” said Jonas Tabor.  “If I was Henry Louden I wouldn’t let him wear ’em around here.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t, wouldn’t you, Jonas?” Mr. Arp employed the accents of sarcasm.  “I’d like to see Henry Louden try to interfere with ’Gene Bantry.  Fanny’d lock the old fool up in the cellar.”

The lofty vision lurched out of view.

“I reckon,” said the Colonel, leaning forward to see the last of it—­“I reckon Henry Louden’s about the saddest case of abused step-father I ever saw.”

“It’s his own fault,” said Mr. Arp—­“twice not havin’ sense enough not to marry.  Him with a son of his own, too!”

“Yes,” assented the Colonel, “marryin’ a widow with a son of her own, and that widow Fanny!”

“Wasn’t it just the same with her first husband —­Bantry?” Mr. Davey asked, not for information, as he immediately answered himself.  “You bet it was!  Didn’t she always rule the roost?  Yes, she did.  She made a god of ’Gene from the day he was born.  Bantry’s house was run for him, like Louden’s is now.”