Cap'n Sproul, without especial attention to this astonishing announcement, was provoked beyond control by this stranger's contemptuous stare. He grabbed up an ash-stick that served him for a stove-poker.
"Get out of here," he repeated, "or I'll peg you down through this floor like a spike!"
But the thin man simply gazed at him mournfully and sat down.
"Havin' been killed three times—three times—dead by violent means," he said, "I have no fear of death. Strike me—I shall not resist."
Even a bashi-bazouk must have quailed before that amazing declaration and that patient resignation to fate. Cap'n Sproul looked him up and down for many minutes and then tucked the smutty ash-stick under the stove.
"Well, what insane horsepittle did you get out of by crawlin' through the keyhole?" he demanded.
"Oh, I am not insane," remonstrated the thin man. "It is always easy for fools in this world to blat that insult when a man announces something that they don't understand. A man that knows enough to be selectman of Smyrna hadn't ought to be a fool. I hope you are not. But you mustn't blat like a fool."
Cap'n Sproul could not seem to frame words just then.
"The first time I died," pursued his remarkable guest, "I was frozen to death." He pulled up his trousers and showed a shank as shrunken as a peg-leg. "All the meat came off. The second time I died, a hoss kicked me on the head. The third time, a tree fell on me. And there is no hell—there is no heaven. If there had been I'd have gone to one place or the other."
"If I was runnin' either place you wouldn't," said the Cap'n, sourly.