“We was talkin’ about Mr. Williams,” began Phinney.

“The Grand Panjandrum of East Harniss,” broke in the depot master.  “East Harniss is blessed with a great man, Bailey, and, like consider’ble many blessin’s he ain’t entirely unmixed.”

Obed and Simeon looked puzzled, but Captain Stitt bounced in his chair like a good-natured rubber ball.  “Ho! ho!” he chuckled, “you don’t surprise me, Sol.  We had a great man over to South Orham three years ago and he begun by blessin’s and ended with—­with t’other thing.  Ho! ho!”

“What do you mean?” demanded Sim.

“Why, I mean Stingy Gabe.  You’ve heard of Stingy Gabe, ain’t you?”

“I guess we’ve all heard somethin’ about him,” laughed Captain Sol; “but we’re willin’ to hear more.  He was a reformer, wa’n’t he?”

“He sartin was!  Ho! ho!”

“For the land sakes, tell it, Bailey,” demanded Mr. Gott impatiently.  “Don’t sit there bouncin’ and gurglin’ and gettin’ purple in the face.  Tell it, or you’ll bust tryin’ to keep it in.”

“Oh, it’s a great, long—­” began Captain Bailey protestingly.

“Go on,” urged Phinney.  “We’ve got more time than anything else, the most of us.  Who was this Stingy Gabe?”

“Yes,” urged Gott, “and what did he reform?”

Captain Stitt held up a compelling hand.  “It’s all of a piece,” he interrupted.  “It takes in everything, like an eatin’-house stew.  And, as usual in them cases, the feller that ordered it didn’t know what was comin’ to him.

“Stingy Gabe was that feller.  His Sunday name was Gabriel Atkinson Holway, and his dad used to peddle fish from Orham to Denboro and back.  The old man was christened Gabriel, likewise.  He owed ’most everybody, and, besides, was so mean that he kept the scales and trimmin’s of the fish he sold to make chowder for himself and family.  All hands called him ‘Stingy Gabe,’ and the boy inherited the name along with the fifteen hundred dollars that the old man left when he died.  He cleared out—­young Gabe did—­soon as the will was settled and afore the outstandin’ debts was, and nobody in this latitude see hide nor hair of him till three years ago this comin’ spring.

“Then, lo and behold you! he drops off the parlor car at the Orham station and cruises down to South Orham, bald-headed and bay-windowed, sufferin’ from pomp and prosperity.  Seems he’d been spendin’ his life cornerin’ copper out West and then copperin’ the corners in Wall Street.  The folks in his State couldn’t put him in jail, so they sent him to Congress.  Now, as the Honorable Atkinson Holway, he’d come back to the Cape to rest his wrist, which had writer’s cramp from signin’ stock certificates, and to ease his eyes with a sight of the dear old home of his boyhood.

“Bill Nickerson comes postin’ down to me with the news.

“‘Bailey,’ says he, ’what do you think’s happened?  Stingy Gabe’s struck the town.’

“‘For how much?’ I asks, anxious.  ’Don’t let him have it, whatever ‘tis.’