第72章

"Yes.But why does Babbitt remind you of a dirigible balloon? Idon't see the connection."

"Don't you? Well, seems's if I did.Phin fills himself up with the gas he gets from his Anarchist papers and magazines--the 'rich man's war' and all the rest of it--and goes up in the air and when he's up in the air he's kind of hard to handle.That's what you told me about the balloon, if I recollect."Grover laughed heartily."Then the best thing to do is to keep him on the ground, I should say," he observed.

Jed rubbed his chin."Um-hm," he drawled, "but shuttin' off his gas supply might help some.I don't think I'd worry about him much, if I was you."They separated at the front gate before the shop, where the rows of empty posts, from which the mills and vanes had all been removed, stood as gaunt reminders of the vanished summer.Major Grover refused Jed's invitation to come in and have a smoke.

"No, thank you," he said, "not this evening.I'll wait here a moment and say good-night to the Armstrongs and Phillips and then Imust be on my way to the camp....Why, what's the matter?

Anything wrong?"

His companion was searching in his various pockets.The search completed, he proceeded to look himself over, so to speak, taking off his hat and looking at that, lifting a hand and then a foot and looking at them, and all with a puzzled, far-away expression.When Grover repeated his question he seemed to hear it for the first time and then not very clearly.

"Eh?" he drawled."Oh, why--er--yes, there IS somethin' wrong.

That is to say, there ain't, and that's the wrong part of it.Idon't seem to have forgotten anything, that's the trouble."His friend burst out laughing.

"I should scarcely call that a trouble," he said.

"Shouldn't you? No, I presume likely you wouldn't.But I never go anywhere without forgettin' somethin', forgettin' to say somethin'

or do somethin' or bring somethin'.Never did in all my life.Now here I am home again and I can't remember that I've forgot a single thing....Hum....Well, I declare! I wonder what it means.

Maybe, it's a sign somethin's goin' to happen."He said good night absent-mindedly.Grover laughed and walked away to meet Ruth and her brother, who, with Barbara dancing ahead, were coming along the sidewalk.He had gone but a little way when he heard Mr.Winslow shouting his name.

"Major!" shouted Jed."Major Grover! It's all right, Major, Ifeel better now.I've found it.'Twas the key.I left it in the front door lock here when I went away this mornin'.I guess there's nothin' unnatural about me, after all; guess nothin's goin'

to happen."

But something did and almost immediately.Jed, entering the outer shop, closed the door and blundered on through that apartment and the little shop adjoining until he came to his living-room beyond.

Then he fumbled about in the darkness for a lamp and matchbox.He found the latter first, on the table where the lamp should have been.Lighting one of the matches, he then found the lamp on a chair directly in front of the door, where he had put it before going away that morning, his idea in so doing being that it would thus be easier to locate when he returned at night.Thanking his lucky stars that he had not upset both chair and lamp in his prowlings, Mr.Winslow lighted the latter.Then, with it in his hand, he turned, to see the very man he and Major Grover had just been discussing seated in the rocker in the corner of the room and glaring at him malevolently.

Naturally, Jed was surprised.Naturally, also, being himself, he showed his surprise in his own peculiar way.He did not start violently, nor utter an exclamation.Instead he stood stock still, returning Phineas Babbitt's glare with a steady, unwinking gaze.

It was the hardware dealer who spoke first.And that, by the way, was precisely what he had not meant to do.

"Yes," he observed, with caustic sarcasm, "it's me.You needn't stand there blinkin' like a fool any longer, Shavin's.It's me."Jed set the lamp upon the table.He drew a long breath, apparently of relief.

"Why, so 'tis," he said, solemnly."When I first saw you sittin'

there, Phin, I had a suspicion 'twas you, but the longer I looked the more I thought 'twas the President come to call.Do you know,"he added, confidentially, "if you didn't have any whiskers and he looked like you you'd be the very image of him."This interesting piece of information was not received with enthusiasm.Mr.Babbitt's sense of humor was not acutely developed.

"Never mind the funny business, Shavin's," he snapped."I didn't come here to be funny to-night.Do you know why I came here to talk to you?"Jed pulled forward a chair and sat down.

"I presume likely you came here because you found the door unlocked, Phin," he said.

"I didn't say HOW I came to come, but WHY I came.I knew where you was this afternoon.I see you when you left there and I had a good mind to cross over and say what I had to say before the whole crew, Sam Hunniwell, and his stuck-up rattle-head of a daughter, and that Armstrong bunch that think themselves so uppish, and all of 'em."Mr.Winslow stirred uneasily in his chair."Now, Phin," he protested, "seems to me--"But Babbitt was too excited to heed.His little eyes snapped and his bristling beard quivered.