Cap'n Sproul's eyes had been widening, and his tongue was nervously licking wisps of whisker between his lips.
"Was that in a Bost'n horsepittle?" he asked, with eager interest.
"That's where. In the fall three years ago. Pneumony."
"Mine was rheumatic fever two years ago," said the Cap'n. "It's what drove me off'm deep water. She was fat, wasn't she, and had light hair and freckles across the bridge of her nose, and used to set side of the bed and hum: 'I'm a pilgrim, faint and weary'?"
"Damme if you didn't ring the bell with that shot!" cried the old showman in astonishment.
"Well, it's just ditto and the same with me," said the Cap'n, rapping his knuckles on his breast. "Same horsepittle, same nuss, same thing generally—only when I was sickest I told her I had property wuth about thutty thousand dollars."
"So did I," announced Hiram. "It's funny that when a man's drunk or sick he's got to tell first comers all he knows, and a good deal more!" He ran his eyes up and down over Cap'n Sproul with fresh interest. "If that don't beat tophet! You and me both at that horsepittle and gettin' mixed up with the same woman!"
"This world ain't got no special bigness," said the Cap'n. "I've sailed round it a dozen times, and I know."
The showman grasped the selectman by the coat-lapel and demanded earnestly: "Didn't you figger it as I did, when you got so you could set up and take notice, that she wasn't all right in her head?"
"Softer'n a jelly-fish!" declared the Cap'n, with unction.