"Well, I guess you have," he proclaimed, with twinkling eyes, "Just think! You've brought out the truth about that lost coin collection; you've saved Hopewell Drugg from becoming a regular reprobate—at least, so says his mother-in-law; you've converted Walky Dexter from his habit of taking a 'snifter'——"
"Oh, no!" laughed Janice. "Josephus converted Walky."
Save at times when he had to deliver freight or express to the hotel, the village expressman had very little business to take him near Lem Parraday's bar nowadays. However, because of that secret between Janice and himself, Walky approached the Inn one evening with the avowed purpose of speaking to Joe Bodley.
Marm Parraday had returned home that very day—and she had returned a different woman from what she was when she went away. The Inn was already being conducted on a Winter basis, for most of the Summer boarders had flitted. There were few patrons now save those who hung around the bar.
Walky, entering by the front door instead of the side entrance, came upon Lem and his wife standing in the hall. Marm Parraday still had her bonnet on. She was grimly in earnest as she talked to Lem—so much in earnest, indeed, that she never noticed the expressman's greeting.
"That's what I've come home for, Lem Parraday—and ye might's well know it. I'm a-goin' ter do my duty—what I knowed I should have done in the fust place. You an' me have worked hard here, I reckon. But you ain't worked a mite harder nor me; and you ain't made the Inn what it is no more than I have."
"Not so much, Marm—not so much," admitted her husband evidently anxious to placate her, for Marm Parraday was her old forceful self again.
"I'd never oughter let rum sellin' be begun here; an' now I'm a-goin' ter end it!"
"My mercy, Marm! 'Cordin' ter the way folks talk, it's goin' to be ended, anyway, when they vote on Town Meeting Day," said Lem, nervously. "I ain't dared renew my stock for fear the 'drys' might git it——"
"Lem Parraday—ye poor, miser'ble worm!" exclaimed his wife. "Be you goin' ter wait till yer neighbors put ye out of a bad business, an' then try ter take credit ter yerself that ye gin it up? Wal, I ain't!" cried the wife, with energy.