Mrs. Barnes declined the offer.
“It may be fair to you,” she said, “but I can't wait so long. I want to settle this afore I go back to South Middleboro. And I shall go back tomorrow, or the day after at the latest.”
Another session of “weeding.” Then said Mr. Cobb: “Well, all right, all right. I'll think it over and then I'll drive across to East Wellmouth, have another look at the property, and let you know. I'll see you day after tomorrow forenoon. Where you stoppin' over there?”
Thankful told him. He walked as far as the door with her.
“Hope you ain't put out with me, ma'am,” he said. “I have to be kind of sharp and straight up and down in my dealin's; they'd get the weather gauge on me a dozen times a day if I wa'n't. But I'm real kind inside—to them I take a notion to. I'll—I'll treat you right—er—er—Cousin Thankful; you see if I don't. I'm real glad you come to me. Good day.”
Thankful went down the path. As she reached the sidewalk she turned and looked back. The gentleman with the kind interior was standing peering at her through the cracked glass of the door. He was still tugging at his whiskers and if, as he had intimated, he had “taken a notion” to her, his expression concealed the fact wonderfully.
Captain Obed, who had evidently been on the lookout for his passenger, appeared on the platform of the store on the other side of the road. After asking if she had any other “port of call” in that neighborhood, he assisted her into the carriage and they started on their homeward trip. The captain must have filled with curiosity concerning the widow's interview with Mr. Cobb, but beyond asking if she had seen the latter, he did not question. Thankful appreciated his reticence; the average dweller in Wellmouth—Winnie S., for instance—would have started in on a vigorous cross-examination. Her conviction that Captain Bangs was much above the average was strengthened.
“Yes,” she said, “he was there. I saw him. He's a—a kind of queer person, I should say. Do you know him real well, Cap'n Bangs?”
The captain nodded. “Yes,” he said, “I know him about as well as anybody outside of Trumet does. I ain't sure that anybody really knows him all the way through. Queer!” he chuckled. “Well, yes—you might say Sol Cobb was queer and you wouldn't be strainin' the truth enough to start a plank. He's all that and then consider'ble.”
“What sort of a man is he?”