She laughed merrily.  Galusha did not laugh.  The game was altogether too risky for him to enjoy it.  A person sitting on a powder barrel could scarcely be expected to enjoy the sight of a group of children playing with matches in close proximity.  An explosion, sooner or later, might be considered certain.  But the children continued to play and day after day went by, and no blow-up took place.  Galusha sat upon his barrel pondering apprehensively and—­waiting.  There were times when, facing what seemed the inevitable, he found himself almost longing for the promised summons from the Institute.  An expedition to the wilds of—­of almost anywhere, provided it was remote enough—­offered at least a means of escape.  But, to offset this, was the knowledge that escape by flight involved giving up East Wellmouth and all it had come to mean to him.  Of course, he would be obliged to give it up some day and, in all probability, soon—­but—­well, he simply could not bring himself to the point of hastening the separation.  So he shifted from the powder barrel to the sharp horn of the other dilemma and shifted back again.  Both seats were most uncomfortable.  The idea that there was an element of absurdity in his self-imposed martyrdom and that, after all, what he had done might be considered by the majority as commendable rather than criminal, did not occur to him at all.  He would not have been Galusha Cabot Bangs if it had.

He meditated much and Primmie, always on the lookout for new symptoms, noticed the meditations.  When Primmie noticed a thing she never hesitated to ask questions concerning it.  She was dusting the sitting room one morning and he was sitting by the window looking out.

“You’re thinkin’ again, ain’t you, Mr. Bangs?” observed Primmie.

Galusha started.  “Eh?” he queried.  “Thinking?  Oh, yes—­yes!—­I suppose I was thinking, Primmie.  I—­ah—­sometimes do.”

“You ’most always do.  I never see anybody think as much as you do, Mr. Bangs.  Never in my born days I never.  And lately—­my savin’ soul!  Seems as if you didn’t do nothin’ but think lately.  Just set around and think and twiddle that thing on your watch chain.”

The thing on the watch chain was a rather odd charm which Mr. Bangs had possessed for many years.  “Twiddling” it was a habit of his.  In fact, he had twiddled it so much that the pivot upon which it had hung broke and Martha had insisted upon his sending the charm to Boston for repairs.  It had recently been returned.

“What is that thing, Mr. Bangs?” asked Primmie.  “I was lookin’ at it t’other day when you left your watch chain layin’ out in the sink.”

“In the sink?  You mean by the sink, don’t you, Primmie?”

“No, I don’t, I mean in it.  You’d forgot your watch and Miss Martha she sent me up to your room after it.  I fetched it down to you and you and her was talkin’ in the kitchen and you was washin’ your hands in the sink basin.  Don’t you remember you was?”