in his sleep. All creation looked crazy and I was the only sane critter in it.

On Monday evenin’ he came sailin’ into the store, all smiles. ’Twas some time afore I could get him alone, but, when I could, I nailed him.

"Now," says I, "perhaps you’ll tell me why you run off and left me, and where you’ve been, and what you mean by it, and a few other things."

He grinned. "Been?" he says. "Well, I’ve been to see the last of Miss Letitia Pendlebury of Pendlebury Villa, Ostable, Mass. Miss Pendlebury is no more."

"No more!" I hollered. "No more! Don’t tell me she’s dead!"

"I sha’n’t," says he, "because she isn’t. She’s alive, all right, but she’s no more Miss Pendlebury. She’s Mrs. Winthrop Adams Beanblossom now," he says. "They were married this forenoon."

"Married?"

"Married."

"But—but—after the hangin’ news—and the hog-stealin’—and—Does she know it? She wouldn’t marry him after that?"

"She knows and she was tickled to death to marry him. Skipper, there was a P.S. on the back of that letter of Pullet’s. You didn’t turn the page over; I did and I recognized the life-saver right off. Here it is."

He passed me Beanblossom’s letter, back side up. There was a P.S., but it looked to me more like the finishin’ knock on the head than it did like a life-saver. This was it:

"P.S. I have neglected to state another fact which my researches have brought to light and which makes the affair even more hopeless. My own ancestor, at that time Governor of the Colony, was the person who sentenced Ezekiel Pendlebury and caused him to be hanged."

"And that," says I, "is what you call a life-saver! My nine-times great-granddad has your nine-times great-granddad hung and that removes all my objections to marryin’ you. Oh, sure and sartin! Yes, indeed!"

He smiled superior. "Listen, you doubtin’ Thomas," says he. "You can’t see it, but Sister Letitia saw it right off when I put Pullet’s case afore her at the Hotel Somerset, where she was stoppin’. Her ancestor was a hog-stealer and a hobo; but Beanblossom’s ancestor was a Governor and a nabob from way back. If by just sayin’ yes you could swap a 

 Prev. P 19/171 next