Galusha had not said anything; and what he said now was neither brilliant nor original.

“Dear me, dear me!” he murmured.  Martha looked at him, keenly.

“Why, what is it, Mr. Bangs?” she asked.  “Raish’s buyin’ the stock won’t make any difference to you, will it?”

“Eh? . . .  To me?  Why—­why, of course not.  Dear me, no.  Why—­ah—­ how could it make any difference to me?”

“I didn’t mean you, yourself.  I meant to the Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot people, or whoever it was that bought my stock.”

“Oh—­oh, oh!  To them?  Oh, yes, yes!  I thought for the moment you referred to me personally.  Ha, ha!  That would have been very—­ah—­ funny, wouldn’t it?  No, I don’t think it will make any difference to Cousin—­ah—­I mean to the purchasers of your shares.  No, no, indeed—­ah—­yes.  Quite so.”

If Miss Phipps noticed a slight incoherence in this speech, she did not comment upon it.  Galusha blinked behind his spectacles and passed a hand across his forehead.  His landlady continued her story.

“I asked Doctor Powers what reason Raish was givin’ people for his buyin’.  The doctor said he gave reasons enough, but they weren’t very satisfyin’ ones to a thinkin’ person.  Raish said he owned a big block of the stock himself and yet it wasn’t big enough to give him much say as to what should be done with the company.  Of course, nothin’ could be done with it at present, but still some time there might and so he thought he might as well be hung for an old sheep as a lamb and buy in what he could get, provided he could get it cheap enough.  He had come to the doctor first, he said.  Ha, ha!  That was kind of funny.”

“Eh? . . .  Oh, yes, certainly. . . .  Of course.”

“But I haven’t told you yet why it was funny.  It seems he told every person he went to that he or she was the first.  Doctor Powers prides himself on bein’ a pretty good business man and I guess it provoked him to find that Raish had fooled him into takin’ a lower price than some of the rest got.  He said as much to me.  He said that he agreed with what Raish said, that about he might as well be hung for an old sheep as a lamb.  So long as he was hung, so the doctor said, he didn’t care what it was for.”

She laughed again and her lodger smiled, although rather feebly.  He murmured that it was very amusing.

“Yes, wasn’t it?” said Martha.  “Well, the doctor was very anxious that I should not sell at a cent less than fifteen dollars a share.  I wonder what he, or Raish Pulcifer either, would say if they knew I had sold already, and for as much as father paid, too.  Oh, I wonder if Raish has been to see Cap’n Jeth yet.  He won’t buy his shares for any eight dollars a piece, he can be sure of that.”

Galusha nodded; he was sure of it, too.

“But,” said Martha, ending the conversation for the time, “why do you suppose Raish is buyin’ at all?  What is goin’ on, anyway?”