"No."
"I see.... Yus, yus.... Just goin' to make a—er—sort of—what you might call a—er—a call, I presume likely."
"I shouldn't wonder."
"Um-hm.... I see.... Yus, yus, I see.... Um-hm.... Well, I suppose we might as well—er—start now as any time, eh?"
"Better, I should say, Judah. Whenever you and the Foam Flake are ready, I am."
The Foam Flake was the name with which Judah had rechristened the old horse. The animal's name up to the time of the rechristening had been Pet, but this, Mr. Cahoon explained, he could not stand.
"'Whatever else he is,' says I to young Minot, 'he ain't no pet—not of mine. The only way I ever feel like pettin' that oat barrel,' I says, 'is with a rope's end.' 'Well, why don't you give him a new name?' says he. 'What'll I call him?' says I. 'Anything you can think of,' he says. 'By Henry,' says I. 'I have called him about everything I can think of, already.' Haw, haw! That was a pretty good one, wan't it Cap'n Sears?"
"But where did you get 'Foam Flake' from?" the captain had wanted to know.
"Oh, it just come to me, as you might say, same as them things do come sometimes. I was tellin' the Methodist minister about it one day and he said 'twas a—er—one of them—er—inflammations. Eh? Don't seem as if it could have been 'inflammation,' but 'twas somethin' like it."
"Inspiration, maybe."