and bounded on.  He bounded also, but the hat gained.  It caught for an instant on the weather side of a tombstone, but just as he was about to pick it up, a fresh gust sent it sailing over the obstacle.  It was dashed against the side of the old church and then carried around the end of the building and out of sight.  Its owner plunged after it and, a moment later, found himself at the foot of a grass-covered bank, a good deal disheveled and very much surprised.  Also, close at hand some one screamed, in a feminine voice, and another voice, this one masculine, uttered an emphatically masculine exclamation.

Galusha sat up.  The old church was placed upon a side-hill, its rear toward the cemetery which he had just been exploring, and its front door on a level at least six feet lower.  He, in his wild dash after the brown derby, had not noticed this and, rushing around the corner, had been precipitated down the bank.  He was not hurt, but he was rumpled and astonished.  No more astonished, however, than were the young couple who had been sitting upon the church steps and were now standing, staring down at him.

Galusha spoke first.

“Oh, dear!” he observed.  “Dear me!” Then he added, by way of making the situation quite clear, “I must have fallen, I think.”

Neither of the pair upon the church steps seemed to have recovered sufficiently to speak, so Mr. Bangs went on.

“I—­I came after my hat,” he explained.  “You see—­ Oh, there it is!”

The brown derby was stuck fast in the bare branches of an ancient lilac bush which some worshiper of former time had planted by the church door.  Galusha rose and limped over to rescue his truant property.

“It blew off,” he began, but the masculine half of the pair who had witnessed his flight from the top to the bottom of the bank, came forward.  He was a dark-haired young man, with a sunburned, pleasant face.

“Say, that was a tumble!” he declared.  “I hope you didn’t hurt yourself.  No bones broken, or anything like that?”

Galusha shook his head.  “No-o,” he replied, somewhat doubtfully.  “No, I think not.  But, dear me, what a foolish thing for me to do!”

The young man spoke again.

“Sure you’re not hurt?” he asked.  “Let me brush you off; you picked up a little mud on the way down.”

Galusha looked at the knees of his trousers.

“So I did, so I did,” he said.  “I don’t remember striking at all on the way, but I could scarcely have accumulated all that at the bottom.  Thank you, thank you! . . .  Why, dear me, your face is quite familiar!  Haven’t we met before?”

The young fellow smiled.  “I guess we have,” he said.  “I put you aboard Lovetts’ express wagon Friday afternoon and started you for Wellmouth Centre.  I didn’t expect to see you over here in East Wellmouth.”

Galusha adjusted his spectacles—­fortunately they were not broken—­ and looked at the speaker.