"Since when?" broke in the Professor, excitedly.
"Since the day before I last engaged you to give me music lessons," replied Huldy.
What the Professor would have said in reply to this will never be known; for at that moment Mrs. Mason opened the door, and looking in, said, "The Deacon's come."
Strout grasped his hat, and with a hurried bow and "Good morning" to Huldy, left the room, closing the door behind him. It must be said for the Professor that he bore defeat with great equanimity, and when he reached the great kitchen and shook hands with Deacon Mason, who had just come in from the barn, the casual observer would have noticed nothing peculiar in his expression.
"Waal, Deacon," said he in a low tone, "did you git the money?"
"Oh, I've 'ranged 'bout the money," said the Deacon; "but I had a talk with my lawyer, and he said it wasn't good bizness for me to pay over the five hundred dollars till the store was actually knocked down to you. Here's that note of yourn that the town clerk endorsed las' night. Neow, when the auctioneer says the store is yourn I'll give yer the five hundred dollars and take the note. I'll be up to the auction by half-past two, so you needn't worry, it'll be jest the same as though yer had the money in yer hand."
Strout looked a little disturbed; but thinking the matter over quickly, he decided that he had nothing to gain by arguing the question with the Deacon; so saying, "Be sure and be on hand, Deacon, for it's a sure thing my gettin' that store, if I have the cash to pay down," he left the house.
He went up the hill and turned the corner on the way back to his boarding house. When he got out of sight of the Deacon's house he stopped, clenched his hands, shut his teeth firmly together and stamped his foot on the ground; then he ejaculated in a savage whisper, "Women are wussern catamounts; you know which way a catamount's goin' to jump. I wonder whether she was honest about that, or whether she's been foolin' me all this time; she'll be a sorry girl when I git that store and 'lected tax collector, and git app'inted postmaster. I've got three tricks left, ef I have lost two. I wonder who it was put that idea into the Deacon's head not ter let me have thet money till the sale was over. I bet a dollar it wuz thet city feller. Abner says thet he met Appleby on his way back to Montrose, and he told him thet he saw thet city feller and the Deacon drive off tergether from front o' the bank. Oh! nonsense, what would the son of a millionaire want of a grocery store in a little country town like this?" and he went into his boarding house to dinner.
A few moments after two o'clock Strout could restrain his impatience no longer, and leaving his boarding house he walked over to the grocery store. Quite a number of the Mason's Corner people were gathered in the Square, for to them an auction sale was as good as a show. Quincy had not arrived, and the Professor tried to quiet his nerves by walking up and down the platform and smoking a cigar. The crowd gradually increased, quite a number coming in teams from Montrose and from Eastborough Centre. One of the teams from Montrose brought the auctioneer, Mr. Beers, with whom Strout was acquainted. He gave the auctioneer a cigar, and they walked up and down the platform smoking and talking about everything else but the auction sale. It was a matter of professional dignity with Mr. Barnabas Beers, auctioneer, not to be on too friendly terms with bidders before an auction. He had found that it had detracted from his importance and had lowered bids, if he allowed would be purchasers to converse with him concerning the articles to be sold. It was their business, he maintained in a heated argument one evening in the hotel at Montrose, to find out by personal inspection the condition and value of what was to be sold, and it was his business, he said, to know as little about it as possible, for the less he knew the less it would interfere with his descriptive powers when, hammer in hand, he took his position on the bench. Having established a professional standing, Barnabas Beers was not a man to step down, and though the Professor, after a while, endeavored to extract some information from the auctioneer as to whether there was likely to be many bidders, he finally gave it up in despair, for he found Mr. Beers as uncommunicative as a hitching post, as he afterwards told Abner Stiles.