But the next day Avery came bobbing hurriedly into the yard with the breathless announcement:
“’Quar’us smelt it comin’! ’Twas a warnin’ to you, Hime!”
“Smelt what? That load of superphosphate that Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish just brought in his packet? I can smell it, too.”
“Klebe Willard came in that packet,” gasped Avery. “His schooner is loadin’ at Portland, and he’s up for his lay-off.”
“Well, what if he did come?” inquired Hiram, rocking on the hind legs of his chair and boring Avery with his piercing eye.
“Why, all is, he’s talked with the Judge, and now he’s frothin’ ’round Brickett’s store, and he’s comin’ up here. I stayed long enough to find that out.”
“Let him come,” observed Hiram, with a calmness that troubled Avery.
The messenger snapped up the full length of his good leg and shook his cane at the imperturbable man on the porch. “But there’s liable to be trouble,” he cried. “Klebe’s pretty middlin’ how-come-ye-so, same as he usually is when he’s ashore, and there’s enough folks in this place to want to see trouble and they’ll poke him ahead. Why don’t you have him put under bonds?”
Hiram got up and stepped down into the road. A man had already started out of Brickett’s store and was stumping up the middle of the dusty highway. A dozen men were leisurely following along the gravelled sidewalks. When the distant pedestrian perceived Hiram, he shouted hoarsely, shook both fists above his head and came on with brisk pace.
“Avery,” said Hiram, “you gallop down with your best high-Betty-Martin tiptoe and tell that gent that’s in the middle of the road that there’s nothing’ doin’ in the circus way here this afternoon.”