Mr. Bloomer’s discomfiture was so intense as to cause him actually to uncross his legs.

“Godfreys, Prim!” he exclaimed.  “Give you a shingle and a pocket-handkercher and you’ll brag to all hands you’ve got a full-rigged ship.  I never said Martha was in debt.  I did say she acted worried to me and I was afraid it might be account of some money business.  She was over to the light just now askin’ for Cap’n Jeth, and he’s the one her dad, Cap’n Jim Phipps, used to talk such things with.  They went into a good many trades together, them too. . . .  But there, ’tain’t any of your affairs, is it, Mr. Bangs—­and ’tain’t any of Primmie’s and my business, so we’d better shut up.  Don’t say nothin’ to Martha about it, Mr. Bangs, if you’d just as soon.  But course you wouldn’t anyhow.”

This was a tremendously long speech for Mr. Bloomer.  He sighed at its end, as if from exhaustion; then he crossed his legs again.  Galusha hastened to assure him that he would keep silent.  Primmie, however, had more to say.

“Why, Zach Bloomer,” she declared, “you know that wan’t only part of what you and me was sayin’.  That wan’t what I wanted to ask Mr. Bangs.  You said if ’twas money matters or business Miss Martha went to see Cap’n Jeth about you cal’lated the cap’n would be cruisin’ up to Boston to see a medium pretty soon.”

“The old man’s Speritu’list,” exclaimed Zach.  “Always goes to one of them Speritu’list mediums for sailin’ orders.”

“Now you let me tell it, Zach.  Well, then I said I wondered if you wan’t a kind of medium, Mr. Bangs.  And Zach, he—­”

Galusha interrupted this time.

“I—­a medium!” he gasped.  “Well, really, I—­ah—­oh, dear!  Dear me!”

“Ain’t you a kind of medium, Mr. Bangs?”

“Certainly not.”

“Well, I thought undertakin’ was your trade till Miss Martha put her foot down on the notion and shut me right up.  You ain’t an undertaker, be you?”

“An undertaker? . . .  Dear me, Primmie, you—­ah—­well, you surprise me.  Just why did you think me an undertaker, may I ask?”

“Why, you see, ‘cause—­’cause—­well, you was talkin’ yesterday about interestin’ remains and—­and all this forenoon you was over in the cemetery and said you had such a good time there and . . . and I couldn’t see why anybody, unless he was an undertaker, or—­or a medium maybe, would call bein’ around with dead folks havin’ a good time . . .  Quit your laughin’, Zach Bloomer; you didn’t know what Mr. Bangs’ trade was any more’n I did.”

Mr. Bloomer cleared his throat.  “Mr. Bangs,” he observed sadly, “didn’t I tell you she’d make a ship out of a shingle?  If you’d puffed smoke, and whistled once in a while, she’d have cal’lated you must be a tugboat.”

Galusha smiled.

“I am an archaeologist,” he said.  “I think I told you that, Primmie.”

Primmie looked blank.  “Yes,” she admitted, “you did, but—­”