“Humph!  You couldn’t be struck any dumber than you are.  You was born dumb.  Set down!  Everybody’s lookin’ at you.  I never was so mortified in my life.”

The harassed Abel made one more attempt.  He battled savagely with his chair.

“I can’t set down,” he said.  “This everlastin’ chair won’t set even.  I snum I believe it ain’t got but three laigs.  There!  Now let’s see.”

He seated himself heavily and with emphasis.  Mr. Jim Fletcher, whose place was next him, uttered an agonized “Ow!”

“No wonder ’twon’t set even, Abe,” he snorted.  “You’ve got the other laig up onto my foot.  Yus, and it’s drove half down through it by this time.  Get up!  Whew!”

A ripple of merriment ran around the circle.  Every one laughed or ventured to smile, every one except the Hardings and Captain Hallett and, of course, Galusha Bangs.  The latter’s thoughts were not in the light keeper’s parlor.  Cousin Gussie leaned over and whispered in his ear: 

“Loosh,” whispered Mr. Cabot, chokingly, “if the rest of this stunt is as good as the beginning I’ll forgive you for handing that fourteen thousand to the mummy-hunters.  I wouldn’t have missed it for more than that.”

Captain Jethro, beating the table, drove his guests to order as of old he had driven his crews.  Having obtained silence and expressed, in a few stinging words, his opinion of those who laughed, he proceeded with his arrangements.

“Tamson,” he commanded, addressing Miss Black, “go and set there by the organ.  Come, Marietta, you know where your place is, don’t you?  Set right where you did last time.  And don’t let’s have any more mockery!” he thundered, addressing the company in general.  “If I thought for a minute there was any mockery or make-believe in these meetin’s, I—­I—­” He paused, his chest heaving, and then added, impatiently, but in a milder tone, “Well, go on, go on!  What are we waitin’ for?  Douse those lights, somebody.”

Miss Hoag—­who had been glancing at the light keeper’s face and behaving in the same oddly nervous, almost apprehensive manner which Martha had noticed when she entered the parlor—­took her seat in the official chair and closed her eyes.  Mr. Beebe turned down the lamps.  The ancient melodeon, recently prescribed for and operated upon by the repairer from Hyannis, but still rheumatic and asthmatic, burst forth in an unhealthy rendition of a Moody and Sankey hymn.  The seance for which Galusha Bangs had laid plans and to which he had looked forward hopefully if a little fearfully—­ that seance was under way.  And now, such was the stunning effect of the most recent blow dealt him by Fate, he, Galusha, was scarcely aware of the fact.

The melodeon pumped on and on.  The rustlings and shiftings in the circle subsided and the expectant and shivery hush which Primmie feared and adored succeeded it.  Miss Black wailed away at the Moody and Sankey selection.  Miss Hoag’s breathing became puffy.  She uttered her first preliminary groan.  Cousin Gussie, being an unsophisticated stranger, was startled, as Mr. Bangs had been at the former seance, but Primmie’s whisper reassured him.