“Yes, I know. I ought to. Go on.”
“Yes'm. And Zach he got to—to bettin', as you might say. And we got talkin' about—er—cherry rum, seems so. It's kind of funny that we done it, now I come to think of it, but we did. Seems to me 'twas Zach started it.”
“Um.... I see. Go on.”
“Well, we argued and argued and finally he up and bet me there wasn't a drink of cherry rum in this house. Bet me five cents, he did, and I took him up. And then I went and got the bottle out of the soup tureen in the closet and fetched it and showed it to him. 'There!' says I. 'There's your drink, Zach Bloomer,' says I. 'Now hand over my five cents.' 'Hold on, Posy,' he says, 'hold on. I said a drink. There ain't a drink in that bottle.' 'Go 'long,' says I, 'the bottle's half full.' But he stuck it out there wasn't a drink in it and afore he'd pay me my bet he had to prove it to himself. Even then, after he'd swallowed the whole of it, he vowed and declared there wasn't a real drink. But he had to hand over the five cents.... And—and that's how I know,” concluded Primmie, “that there ain't any cherry rum in the house, Miss Martha.”
Miss Phipps' remarks on the subject of the wily Mr. Bloomer and the rum drove the thoughts of Mr. Bangs' odd behavior from the mind of her maid. But the consciousness of conspiracy was always present with Galusha, try as he might to forget it. And he was constantly being reminded—of it. Down at the post office at mail time he would feel his coat-tail pulled and looking up would see the face of Mr. Pulcifer solemnly gazing over his head at the rows of letter boxes. Apparently Raish was quite unconscious of the little man's presence, but there would come another tug at the coat-tail and a barely perceptible jerk of the Pulcifer head toward the door.
Feeling remarkably like a fool, Galusha would follow to the front steps of the post office. There Raish would suddenly and, in a tone of joyful surprise, quite as if they had not met for years, seize his hand, pump it up and down and ask concerning his health, the health of the Gould's Bluffs colony and the “news down yonder.” Then, gazing blandly up the road at nothing in particular, he would add, speaking in a whisper and from the corner of his mouth: “Comin' along, Perfessor. She's a-comin' along. Keep your ear out for signals.... What say? Why, no, I don't think it does look as much like rain as it did, Mr. Bangs.”
One evening Galusha, entering the Phipps' sitting room, found Lulie there. She and Martha were in earnest conversation and the girl was plainly much agitated. He was hurriedly withdrawing, but Miss Phipps called him back.
“Come in, Mr. Bangs,” she said. “I think Lulie would like to talk to you. She said she would.”
“Yes. Yes, I would, Mr. Bangs,” put in Lulie, herself. “Could you spare just a minute or two?”
Galusha cheerfully avowed that he had so many spare minutes that he did not know what to do with them.