He pulled at his beard in silence for a moment.  The teller, a brisk young man, possessed of a profound love of mischief and a corresponding lack of reverence, entered the office.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said.  “I thought you was alone, Mr. Thacher.”  Then, with a wink at his superior over the light keeper’s tousled gray head, he observed, “Well, Cap’n Jeth, what’s this I hear about Marietta Hoag?  They tell me she’s left the Spiritualists and gone over to Holiness chapel.  Is it so?”

Jethro came out of his reverie.  His deep-set eyes flashed and his big fist pounded the office table.  No, it was not so.  It was a lie.  Who said it?  Who was responsible for starting such sacrilegious, outrageous yarns?  Marietta Hoag was a woman called and chosen to receive and give out revelations from on high.  The Holiness crowd was a crew of good-for-nothin’, hollerin’ hard-shells.  By the everlastin’—­

He blew out of the office and out of the bank, rumbling and spitting fire like a volcano.  The teller and the cashier watched him go.  Then the former said: 

“That’s the way to get rid of him, Mr. Thacher.  He’ll set ’round and talk you to death if you give him half a chance.  When you want him to go, tell him somebody at the other end of the town has been running down the Spiritualists.  He’ll be so anxious to get there and heave ’em overboard that he’ll forget to stop and finish what he was saying here.”

Which may or may not have been true, but the fact remains that the light keeper did not entirely forget what he and the cashier said concerning Martha Phipps’ surprising bank deposit.  And the next morning, as Martha was walking up the lane from the village, where she had been on a supply-purchasing excursion, she heard heavy footsteps and, turning, saw her neighbor tramping toward her, his massive figure rolling, as it always did when in motion, from side to side like a ship in a seaway.

“Why, hello, Jethro!” she exclaimed.  Captain Jethro merely nodded.  His first remark was a question, and very much to the point.

“Look here, Martha,” he demanded.  “Have you sold that Development stock of yours?”

Martha stared at him.  For a moment she was inclined to believe in the truth of the light keeper’s “spirit revelations.”

“Why—­why, Jethro!” she gasped.  The captain, gazing at her keenly beneath his shaggy brows, seemed to find his answer in her face.

“Humph!” he observed.  “You have sold it, ain’t you?  Well, by the everlastin’!”

“Why—­why, Jethro!  What are you talkin’ about?”

“About that two hundred and fifty shares of Wellmouth Development of yours.  You’ve sold it, ain’t you, Martha?  And you must have got par for it, too.  Did the Trumet Trust Company folks buy it?”

But Miss Phipps was recovering from her surprise.  She waited a moment before replying and, when she did reply, her tone was as crisp, if not as domineering, as her interrogator’s.