broke in. "It’s what I am that troubles me. I don’t dare think of that when the minister’s around—he might be a mind-reader. No, Pul—Beanblossom, I mean—it’s no use. I imagined because I could run a three-masted schooner I could navigate this craft. I can’t. I know twice as much as you do about keepin’ store, but the trouble with that example is the answer, which is that you don’t know nothin’. We might just exactly as well shut up shop now, while there’s enough left to square the outstandin’ debts."

He turned white and began the hand-wringin’ exercise.

"Think of the disgrace!" he says.

"Think of my twenty-five hundred," says I.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," says a voice astern of us; "excuse me for buttin’ in; but I judge that what you need is a butter."

Pullet and I jumped and turned round. We’d supposed we was alone and to say we was surprised is puttin’ it mild. For a second I couldn’t make out what had happened, or where the voice came from, or who ’twas that had spoke—then, as he come across into the lamplight I recognized him. ’Twas Jim Henry Jacobs, the livin’ mystery.

Jim Henry was middlin’-sized, sharp-faced, dressed like a ready-tailored advertisement, and as smooth and slick as an eel in a barrel of sweet oil. According to his entry on the books of the Poquit House, he hailed from Chicago. He’d been in Ostable for pretty nigh a month and nobody had been able to find out any more about him than just that, which is a some miracle of itself—if you know Ostable. He was always ready to talk—talkin’ was one of his main holts—but when you got through talkin’ with him, all you had to remember was a smile and a flow of words. He was at the seashore for his health, that he always gave you to understand. You could believe it if you wanted to.

He’d got into the habit of spending his evenings at Pullet’s store, settin’ around, listening, and smiling and agreeing with folks. He was the only feller I ever met who could say no and agree with you at the same time. Pullet and I had seen him settin’ abaft the stove early in the evening, but, somehow or other, we got the notion that he’d cleared out with the other loafers. However, he hadn’t, and he’d heard all we’d been sayin’.

He walked across to where we were, pulled a shoe box from under the counter, came to anchor on it and crossed his legs.

"Gentlemen," he says again, "you need a butter."

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