Mrs. Becky Blount, the other customer, elevated the tip of a long nose.  “Well,” she observed, “if Martha Phipps is lendin’ him her pa’s hats so early, I must say—­”

She did not say what it was she must say, but she had said quite enough.

Martha herself said something when her boarder appeared beneath his new headgear.  When he removed it, upon entering the dining room, she took it from his hand.

“Is this the cap you just bought, Mr. Bangs?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Galusha, meekly.  “Do you like it?”

She regarded the fuzzy yellow thing with a curious expression.

“Do you?” she asked.

The reply was astonishingly prompt and emphatic.

“I loathe it,” said Galusha.

She transferred the stare from the cap to its owner’s face.

“You do!” she cried.  “Then why in the world did you buy it?”

Mr. Bangs squirmed slightly.  “He said I ought to,” he answered.

“Who said so?”

“That man—­that Mr. Pulcifer.  Mr.—­ah—­Deedee—­Beebe, I mean—­was busy, and Mr. Pulcifer insisted on showing me the caps.  I didn’t like this one at all, but he talked so much that—­that I couldn’t stay and hear him any longer.  He makes me very nervous,” he added, apologetically.  “I suppose it is my fault, but—­ah—­he does, you know.”

“And do you mean to say that you took this—­this outrage because Raish Pulcifer talked you into it?”

Galusha smiled sadly.  “Well, he—­he talked me into it—­yes,” he admitted.  “Into the—­ah—­cap and out of the store.  Dear me, yes.”

Miss Martha drew a long breath.

“My heavens and earth!” she exclaimed.  “And what did you do with father’s hat, the one you wore down there?”

Her lodger gasped.  “Oh, dear, dear!” he exclaimed.  “Oh, dear me!  I must have left it in the shop.  I’m so sorry.  How could I do such a careless thing?  I’ll go for it at once, Miss Phipps.”

He would have gone forthwith, but she stopped him.

“I’m goin’ there myself in a little while,” she said.  “I’ve got some other errands there.  And, if you don’t mind,” she added, “I’d like to take this new cap of yours with me.  That is, if you can bear to part with it.”

She went soon afterward and when she returned she had another cap, a sane, respectable cap, one which was not a “sticker.”

“I took it on myself to change the other one for this, Mr. Bangs,” she said.  “I like it lots better myself.  Of course it wasn’t my affair at all and I suppose I ought to beg your pardon.”

He hastened to reassure her.

“Please don’t speak so, Miss Phipps,” he begged.  “It was very, very kind of you.  And I like this cap very much.  I do, really. . . .  I ought to have a guardian, hadn’t I?” he added.

It was precisely what she was thinking at the moment and she blushed guiltily.