“Cal’late they can see that for themselves, Lulie,” he observed.  “How are you, Martha?  Evenin’, Mr. Bangs.  Everything all right about the light, Zach?”

“Ay, ay, sir,” was Mr. Bloomer’s nautical reply.  The captain grunted.

“Better go look at it,” he said.  Turning, he called over his shoulder, “Come in, all hands.”

“All hands,” that is, the company in the dining room—­came in.  There were fourteen of them, all told, and, as Martha Phipps told Galusha Bangs afterward, “If you had run a net from one end of Ostable County to the other you wouldn’t have landed more freaks than there were in that house at that minute.”  The majority were women and the few men in the party looked as if each realized himself a minority at home and abroad.

“Set down, everybody,” commanded Captain Jethro.  “Lulie, you better help me fetch in them dining-room chairs.  We’ll need ’em.”

“But, father,” begged Lulie, “what are you going to do?”

“Do?  We’re goin’ to have a meetin’, that’s what we’re goin’ to do.  Set down, all of you that can.  We’ll have chairs for the rest in a minute.”

“But, father—­” began Lulie, again.  The captain interrupted her.  “Be still,” he ordered, irritably.  “Marietta, you set over here by the melodeon.  That’ll be about right for you, will it?”

Miss Marietta Hoag was a short, dumpy female with a face which had been described by Zach Bloomer as resembling a “pan of dough with a couple of cranberries dropped into it.”  She wore a blue hat with a red bow and a profusion of small objects—­red cherries and purple grapes—­bobbing on wires above it.  The general effect, quoting Mr. Bloomer again, was “as if somebody had set off a firecracker in a fruit-peddler’s cart.”  The remainder of her apparel was more subdued.

She removed the explosive headgear and came forward in response to the light keeper’s command.  She looked at the chair by the ancient parlor organ and announced:  “Yes, indeed, it’ll do real well, thank you, Cap’n Jethro.”  Her voice was a sharp soprano with liquid gurgles in it—­“like pourin’ pain-killer out of a bottle,” this last still another quotation from the book of Zacheus.

“All right,” said Captain Jeth, “then we’ll begin.  We’ve wasted enough time cruisin’ way over to Trumet and back for nothin’.  No need to waste any more.  Set down, all hands, and come to order.  Lulie, you and Martha and the rest of you set down, too.”

“But, father,” urged his daughter again, “I don’t understand.  What are you going to do?”

“Goin’ to have a meetin’, I tell you.”

“But what sort of a meeting?”

“A seance.  We cruised clear over to Trumet to hear that Brockton medium that was stayin’ at Obed Taylor’s there and when we got to Obed’s we found she’d been called back home unexpected and had left on this afternoon’s train.  So we came back here and Marietta’s goin’ to try to get in communication herself.  That’s all there is to it. . . .  Now don’t waste any more time askin’ fool questions.  Set down.  Martha Phipps, what are you and Mr. Bangs standin’ up for?”