“My hat and coat?” he whispered. “Where are they?”
They were hanging in the entry upon the door of which the captain was thumping. Zach hastened to get them, but before he reached the dining room they heard the outer door open and Jeth's voice demanding to know why Lulie had kept him waiting so long. Nelson, with a somewhat rueful smile and a wave of the hand to Martha and Galusha, dodged into the blackness of the front hall. Miss Phipps closed the door after him. The conspirators looked at each other. Primmie's mouth opened but the expansive hand of Mr. Bloomer promptly covered it and the larger part of her face as well.
“This ain't no time to holler about your savin' soul,” whispered Zacheus, hoarsely. “This is the time to shut up. And KEEP shut up. You be still, Dandelion!”
Primmie obeyed orders and was still. But even if she had shrieked it is doubtful if any one in the dining room could have heard her. The “ghost seiners,” quoting from Mr. Bloomer, were pouring through the entry and, as all were talking at once, the clatter of tongues would have drowned out any shriek of ordinary volume. A moment later the Halletts, father and daughter, led the way into the sitting room. Lulie's first procedure was to glance quickly about the apartment. A look of relief crossed her face and she and Martha Phipps exchanged glances.
“Father has—he has come back,” was her somewhat superfluous explanation. Captain Jethro noted the superfluity.
“Cal'late they can see that for themselves, Lulie,” he observed. “How are you, Martha? Evenin', Mr. Bangs. Everything all right about the light, Zach?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” was Mr. Bloomer's nautical reply. The captain grunted.
“Better go look at it,” he said. Turning, he called over his shoulder, “Come in, all hands.”
“All hands,” that is, the company in the dining room—came in. There were fourteen of them, all told, and, as Martha Phipps told Galusha Bangs afterward, “If you had run a net from one end of Ostable County to the other you wouldn't have landed more freaks than there were in that house at that minute.” The majority were women and the few men in the party looked as if each realized himself a minority at home and abroad.
“Set down, everybody,” commanded Captain Jethro. “Lulie, you better help me fetch in them dining-room chairs. We'll need 'em.”