Mary came in a few minutes later and she had to be told the news. She was as pleased as I was and there was more congratulatin'. Then Georgianna had to go home and, as she was altogether too precious to be allowed to walk, Jim Henry went and got his auto and they left in that.

When he got back—that car must have been sufferin' from a stroke of creepin' paralysis, for it took him two hours to run that little distance—he and I had a good confidential talk. He was way up above this common earth, soarin' around in the clouds, and all he wanted to talk was Georgianna. The whole of creation had been set to music and was dancin' to the one tune—"Georgianna."

It was astonishin' to me who had been in the habit of considerin' him just a sharp, up-to-date buyer and seller, a man whose whole soul was wrapped up in business with no room in it for anything else. I found myself lookin' at him and wonderin': "Is the world comin' to an end, I wonder? Is this my partner? Is this moon-struck critter Jim Henry Jacobs, doctor of sick businesses?"

I couldn't help jokin' him a little.

"Jim," says I, "for a feller who hadn't any use for females you're doin' pretty well, I must say. Either you was mistaken in your old opinions or your new ones are wrong. Which is it? 'Women and business don't mix,' you know. That ain't an original notion; that is quoted from the Gospel according to Jacobs, Chapter 1,000; two hundred and eightieth verse."

He reddened up and laughed. "Well, they don't mix, as a general thing," he says. "I guess 'twas Georgianna's sand in goin' into business that got me in the first place. I leave it to you, Skipper—ain't she a wonder? Now be honest, ain't she?"

Course I said she was; I have the usual sane man's regard for my head and I didn't want it knocked off yet awhile. And Georgianna was as nice a girl as I ever saw—that is, almost as nice. Jim went sailin' on, about how now he could settle down and live like a white man in a home of his own, about the house he was goin' to build, and so forth and etcetery. I declare it made me feel almost jealous to hear him.

"My! my!" says I, kind of spiteful, I'm afraid, "you have got it bad, ain't you! Sudden attacks are liable to be the most acute, I suppose."

He laughed again. You couldn't have made him mad just then.

"Ha, ha!" says he. "Yes, I guess I'm way past where there's any hope for me. But I'm glad of it. It did come sudden, but that's the way most good things come to me. It's my nature. Now if I was like some folks that I won't name, I'd be mopin' around for months without sense enough to know what ailed me."

"Who are you diggin' at?" I wanted to know. He wouldn't tell; said 'twas a secret, and maybe I'd find out the answer for myself some day.

The next few weeks was busy times, in the store and out of it. Georgianna havin' declined the screen contract, Parkinson gave it to us, after a little arguin'. That kept me hustlin', for Jim was too interested in other things to care for screens. He was making arrangements to be married.

And married he and Georgianna were. She'd have waited a little longer, I cal'late—that bein' a woman's way—if it had been left to her to name the time; but Jim Henry never was the waitin' kind. They were married at the parson's and Mary Blaisdell and I saw the splice made fast. Then we went to the depot and said good-by to Mr. and Mrs. Jim Henry Jacobs. They were goin' on a honeymoon cruise to the West Indies that would last two months.

Good-byes ain't ever pleasant to say, but I was so glad for Jim, and so happy because he was, that I tried to be as chipper as I could.

"If you need me, wire at Havana, Skipper," he says. "I'll come the minute you say the word."

"I sha'n't need you," I told him. "Mary and I'll run things as well as we can. She makes a good fust mate, Mary does."

"You bet!" says he. "I feel a little conscience-struck to leave you just now, with that West End crowd tryin' to make trouble for you, but Congressman Shelton is your friend and he'll look out for you in Washin'ton."

"Don't you worry about that," I says. "I ain't scared of Bill Phipps or Ike Hamilton—much, or any of their West End crew. The decent folks in town are on my side, and with Shelton to back me up at Washin'ton, I cal'late I'll keep my job till you come back anyhow."

The train started and Mary and I waved till 'twas out of sight. Then we went back to the store. I give in that the old feelin', the feelin' that I'd had when Jim was sick out West, that of bein' adrift without an anchor, was hangin' around me a little, but I braced up and vowed to myself that I'd do the best I could. If this post-office row did get dangerous, I might telegraph for Jacobs, but I wouldn't till the ship was founderin'.

I suppose you can always get up an opposition party. There was one amongst the Children of Israel in Moses's time, and there's been plenty ever since. So long as somebody has got somethin' there'll always be somebody else to want to get it away from him. That's human nature, and there's as much human nature in Ostable, size considered, as there was in the Land of Canaan.

I'd been postmaster at Ostable for quite a spell. I didn't try for the position, I was mad when 'twas given to me, there wa'n't much of anything in it but a lot of fuss and trouble, and I'd said forty times over that I wished I didn't have it. But when the gang up at the West End of the town set out to take it away from me I r'ared up on my hind legs and swore I'd fight for my job till the last plank sunk from under me. Don't sound like sense, does it? It wa'n't—'twas just more human nature.

Course the opposition wa'n't large and 'twa'n't very influential. Old man William Phipps and young Ike Hamilton was at the head of it, and they had forty or fifty West-Enders to back 'em up. Phipps had been one of the leading workers for Abubus Payne, the chap I beat for the app'intment in the fust place; and young Hamilton was junior partner in the firm of "Ichabod Hamilton & Co., Stoves, Tinware and Fishermen's Supplies," a mile or so up the main road. Young Ike—everybody called him "Ike," though his real name was Ichabod, same as his uncle's—was a pushin' critter, who'd come back from a Boston business college and had started right in to make the town sit up and take notice. He was goin' to get rich—he admitted that much—and he cal'lated to show us hayseeds a few things. Up to now he hadn't showed much but loud clothes and cheek, but he had enough of them to keep all hands interested for a spell.

His uncle, Ichabod, Senior, was a shrewd old rooster, with twenty thousand or so that, accordin' to his brags—he was always tellin' of it—he'd put away for a "rainy day." We have consider'ble damp weather at the Cape, but 'twould have taken a Noah's Ark flood to make Ichabod's purse strings loosen up. That twenty thousand dollars had growed fast to his nervous system and when you pulled away a cent he howled. Young Ike was the only one that could mesmerize this old man into spendin' anything, and how he did it nobody knew. But he did. Since he got into that Stoves and Tinware firm the store had been fixed up and advertisements put in the papers, and I don't know what all. The uncle had been under the weather with rheumatism for a year; maybe that explained a little.

Anyhow 'twas young Ike that picked himself to be postmaster instead of me and he and Phipps got the West-Enders, fifty or so of 'em, to sign a petition askin' that a new app'intment be made. I couldn't be removed except on charges, so a lot of charges was made. Fust, the post-office, bein' in the Ostable Grocery, Dry Goods, Boots and Shoes and Fancy Goods Store, was too far from the center of the town. Second, I was neglectin' the office and my assistant—Mary, that is—was really doin' the whole of the government work. There was some truth in this, because Mary knew a good deal more about mail work than I did, and was as capable a woman as ever lived; and besides, Jim Henry and I had been so busy with our store and the "Windmill Restaurant," and our other by-product ventures, that I had left Mary to run the post-office. But it was run better than any post-office ever was run afore in Ostable and everybody with brains knew it.

Third.... But never mind the rest of the charges, they didn't amount to anything. In fact, there was so little to 'em that when the West End petition went in to Washin'ton, I didn't take the trouble to send one of my own, though Jacobs thought I'd better and a hundred folks asked me to and said they'd sign. I just wrote to the Post-office Department and told them that I was ready to submit my case, if there was any need for it, and if they cared to send a representative to investigate, I'd be tickled to death to see him. They wrote back that they'd look into the matter, and that's the way it stood when Jim and Georgianna left and it stayed so until the lost letter affair run me bows fust onto the rocks and turned the situation from ridiculousness into something that looked likely to be mighty serious for me.

It come about—same as such jolts generally come—when I was least ready for it. Jim Henry had been gone three weeks or more. 'Twas February and none of my influential friends amongst the summer folks was on hand to help. No, Mary and I were all alone and sailin' free with what looked like a fair wind, when "Bump!"—all at once our craft was half full of water and sinkin' fast.

That mornin' the mail was a little mite late and there wa'n't any store trade to speak of. Mary was in the post-office place writin', the usual gang of loafers was settin' around the stove, and I was out front talkin' with Sim Kelley, who lived up to the west end of the town, amongst the mutineers. 'Twas from Sim that I got most of my news about the doin's of the Phipps and Hamilton crowd. He was a great, hulkin', cross-eyed lubber, too lazy to get out of his own way, and as shif'less as a body could be and take pains enough to live.

"Sim," says I to him, "I thought you said old man Hamilton was in bed with his rheumatiz. I saw him up street as I was comin' by. He looked pretty feeble, but he was toddlin' along on foot just as he always does. Rheumatic or not, it's all the same. I cal'late the old critter wouldn't spend enough money to hire a team if he was dyin'."

Sim was surprised, and not only surprised, but, seemingly, a little mite worried. Why he should be worried because Ichabod was takin' chances with his diseases I couldn't see.

"Old man Hamilton!" says he. "Is he out a cold mornin' like this? Where was he bound?"

"Don't know," says I. "He stopped into the drug store when I saw him. Whether that was his final port of call or not I don't know."

He seemed to be thinkin' it over. Then he got up and walked to the door.

"He ain't in sight nowheres," he says. "Guess he wa'n't comin' as far as here, 'tain't likely."

"Well," says I, "how's the rest of the family? The hopeful leader of the forlorn hope—how's he?"

"Ike?" he says. "Oh, he's all right. He's a mighty smart young feller, Ike is."

"Yes," says I, "so I've heard him say. Gettin' ready to stand in with him when he gets my job, are you, Sim?"

That shook him up a mite. 'Twas common talk around town that Sim and Ike was pretty thick. He turned red under his freckles.

"No, no!" he sputtered. "Course I ain't! I'm standin' by you, Cap'n Snow, and you know it. But, all the same, Ike's a smart boy. He's gettin' rich fast, Ike is."

"Sold another cookstove, has he?"

"He sells a lot of 'em. Sold two last month. But that ain't it. He's got foresight and friends in the stock exchange up to Boston. He's buyin' copper stocks and they—"

He stopped short; thought his tongue was runnin' away with him, I presume likely. But I was interested and I kept on.

"Oh!" says I; "he's buyin' coppers, is he? Well, where does he get the U. S. coppers to do it with? Is Uncle Ichabod backin' him? Has the old man's rheumatiz struck to his brains?"

"Course he ain't backin' him. He don't know nothin' of stocks. He ain't up-to-date same as Ike. But he'll be glad enough when his nephew makes fifty thousand. When he finds that out he'll—"

"He'll never find it out on this earth," I cut in. "If he found out that Ike made fifty dollars, all on his own hook, he'd drop dead with heart disease. If he didn't, everybody else in town would. But it takes money to buy stocks, don't it? I never knew Ike had any cash of his own."

"He's in the firm, ain't he! And Hamilton and Co. are——Hello! here comes the depot wagon."

Sure enough, 'twas the depot wagon with the mail. I took the bags from the driver and went back to help Mary sort. I'd taken to helpin' her a good deal lately—more since Jacobs left than ever afore. She said there wa'n't any need of it, but I didn't agree with her. Of course I realized that I was an old fool—but, somehow or other, I felt more and more contented with life when I was alongside of Mary. She and I understood each other and I'd come to depend upon her same as a man might on his sister—or his—well, or anybody, you understand, that he thought a good deal of and knew was square and—and so on. And she seemed to feel the same way about me.

We sorted the mail together, puttin' it in the different boxes and such. And almost the fust thing I run across was that registered letter addressed to "Ichabod Hamilton, Jr." 'Twas a long envelope and up in one corner of it was printed the name of a Boston broker's firm. I laid it out by itself and went on sortin'.

When the sortin' and distributin' was over and the crowd had gone, I called to Sim Kelley. We didn't have Rural Free Delivery then and Sim carried the West End mail box; that is, a lot of the folks up that way chipped in and paid him so much for deliverin' their mail to 'em.

"Sim," says I, "there's a registered letter here for young Ike Hamilton. If I give it to you will you be careful and see that he signs the receipt and the like of that?"

He was outside the partition and he come to the little window and took the letter from me. He acted mighty interested.

"Gosh!" says he, grinnin', "I wouldn't wonder if this was.... Humph! Oh, I'll be careful of it! don't you worry about that."

Just then Mary called to me. I went over to where she was settin' at her desk.

"Cap'n Zeb," she whispered, "I wouldn't send that letter by Sim. It is important, or it would not be registered, and Sim is so irresponsible. If anything should happen it would give Mr. Hamilton and the rest such a chance. And they have accused us of bein' careless already."

They had, that was a fact. One or two letters had gone astray durin' the past six months and the loss of 'em was described, with trimmin's, in the West End charges and petition. And Sim was a lunkhead. I thought it over a jiffy and then I called to Kelley once more. He was just comin' to the hooks by the door outside the mail-box racks where Mary and I and the store clerk—the one we'd hired in place of 'Dolph—hung our overcoats and hats. Sim had hung his coat there that mornin'.

"Sim," I said, "let me see that registered letter of Ike Hamilton's again, will you?" He took it out of his pocket and passed it to me.

"All right," says I; "you needn't bother about this. I'll send a notice by you that it's here and Ike can call for it himself. I won't take any chances of your losin' it."

Well, you'd ought to have seen him! His face blazed up like a Fourth of July tar-barrel. "Chances!" he sung out. "What are you talkin' about? I cal'late I'm able to carry a letter without losin' it. I ain't a kid."

"Maybe not," says I, "but you ain't goin' to lose this one, kid or not. Here's the notice, all made out."

"Notice be darned!" he snarled. "You give me that letter. Hamilton and Co. pay me to carry their mail, don't they? And, besides, Ike told me particular that he was expectin'—"

He pulled up short again.

"Well?" says I. "Heave ahead. What's the rest of it?"

"Nothin'," he answered, ugly; "but you've got no right to say I can't carry a letter when I'm paid to do it. As for losin' things, there's others besides me that lose mail in this town."

There's no use arguin' when a matter's all settled. I handed him the notice and walked off, leavin' him standin' outside that partition, sore as a scalded cat.

I looked at my watch. 'Twas twelve o'clock, my dinner time. I walked out to the hook rack, took down my overcoat and put it on. I had the Hamilton letter in my hand. There wa'n't any reason why I should be more worried about that registered letter than any other, but I was, just the same. Maybe 'twas because 'twas Ike's and he was so anxious to make trouble for me. Somehow or other I couldn't feel safe till he got it and signed the receipt. I thought for a minute and then I decided I'd walk up to Hamilton and Co.'s and deliver it myself. That decision was foolish, maybe, but I felt better when 'twas made. I put the letter in the inside pocket of the overcoat I had on, and just as I was doin' it Mary come out of the post-office room with her hat on.

"Oh!" says she, "are you goin' out, Cap'n Zeb? I thought—"

Then I remembered. She'd asked to go to dinner fust that day and I'd told her of course she could. I begged her pardon and said I'd forgot. I'd wait till she got back. So, after makin' sure that I didn't care, she took her coat from the hook, put it on and went out.

I took off my overcoat and, just as I did so, somethin' fell on the floor. I stooped and picked it up. I swan to man if it wasn't that pesky Hamilton letter! Thinks I, "That's funny!" I put my hand into the pocket where it had been and there was a hole right through the linin'. Now if there's one thing I'm fussy about it is that my pockets are whole. And I knew this one ought to be whole. So I looked at the coat and I'm blessed if it was mine at all! 'Twas Sim Kelley's! Both coats had been hangin' together on the hook-rack and both was blue and about the same size. I'd been saved by a miracle, as you might say.

I was comin' to feel more and more as if there was some sort of fate about that registered letter. I took it back into the post-office room, handlin' it as careful as if 'twas solid gold, and laid it down on the sortin' bench behind the letter boxes. And then somebody spoke to me through the little window.

"Cap'n Zeb," says Sim Kelley, "there's a man just drove over from Bayport to see you. Come in Gabe Lumley's buggy, he did. His name's Peters and Gabe says he's got some sort of government job."

"Government job?" says I. And then it flashed through my mind who the feller might be. The Post-office Department had said they might send an investigator. I didn't care for that, but I did wish Sim hadn't seen him.

"Oh," says I; "all right. It's the lighthouse inspector, I shouldn't wonder. Guess 'tain't me he is after. Probably I ain't the Snow he wants to see; it's Henry Snow over to the Point. Where is he?"

"Out on the platform," says Sim. I hurried out of the post-office room, lockin' the door careful astern of me. The man Peters was just comin' into the store. I met him at the front door. We shook hands and he introduced himself. 'Twas the investigator, sure enough.

"Glad to see you," says I. "I know that may sound like a lie, but, as it happens, it ain't in this case. I ain't got anything to be ashamed of and the sooner the government finds that out the better I'll be pleased."

He laughed. He was a real good chap, this Peters man, and I took to him right off the reel. We stood there talkin' and laughin' and says he:

"Well, Cap'n," he says, "I'll tell you frankly that I'm not very much worried about the conduct of your office here at Ostable. I've made some inquiries about you, here and in Washin'ton, and the answers are pretty satisfactory. Congressman Shelton seems to be a friend of yours."

I grinned. "Yes," says I, "but Shelton's prejudiced, I'm afraid. He and old Major Clark ate a chowder once that I cooked and ever since they've both swore by me."

He laughed, though I could see Shelton hadn't told him the yarn.

"Humph!" says he, "that's unusual, isn't it? Judgin' by some chowders I've eaten, it would be easier to swear at the cook. Speakin' of eatables, though, reminds me that I'm hungry. Where's a good place to get a meal around here?"

"Nowhere," says I, prompt; "not at this season of the year, with the summer dinin'-room closed. But, if you'll wait until my assistant gets back, I'll pilot you down to the Poquit House, where I feed, and we'll face the wust together."

He was willin' to risk it, he said, and we walked back and set down in the post-office department. As we left the front door Sim Kelley went out of it, luggin' his West-End mail box. Peters and I talked. Seems he hadn't come to the Cape a-purpose to investigate me, but he had a job at the Bayport office and had took me in on the way home. After a spell Mary come back and Peters and I headed for the Poquit, where the cold fish balls and warmed-over beans was waitin'.

On the way I saw old man Hamilton, Ike's uncle, totterin' along, headin' to the west'ard this time. I pointed him out to Peters.

"There goes," I says, "one of the fellers that's trying to knock me out of my job."

"Humph!" says he; "he looks pretty near knocked out himself. Why, he's all bent out of shape."

"Yes," I told him. "Ichabod's bent, but he's far from broke. And a tough old limb like him stands a lot of bendin'."

I was feelin' pretty good. With a square man like this Peters to look into matters, I cal'lated I'd be postmaster for a spell yet.

But that afternoon, about three o'clock, as we was inside the mail room, Mary at her desk, and Peters alongside of her, goin' over the books and papers, and me smokin' in a chair nigh the delivery window, Ike Hamilton walked into the store.

"Afternoon, Snow," says he, pert and important as ever, "I understand there's a registered letter for me. I s'pose it is part of your business to refuse to give it to the regular carrier and put me to the trouble of walkin' way down here."

"I s'pose 'tis," says I.

"Yes," he says. "Well, if you were as careful to put your partic'lar friends to the same inconvenience there might not be as much talk about you and your handlin' of this office as there is now."

"Oh, yes, there would," I told him. "There'd always be more talk than anything else where you lived, Ike. Want your letter, do you?"

He was mad, but he held in pretty well.

"I do—if gettin' it won't make you work too hard," he says, sarcastic. "I should hate to see you really work."

"Yes," I says, "the sight of work never was a joy to you, 'cordin' to all accounts. Well, here's your letter."

I reached down to the sortin' table where I'd laid the letter at noon time—and it wa'n't there.

I hunted that table over. "Mary," says I, "did you put that registered letter of Mr. Hamilton's away somewheres?"

She looked surprised and, it seemed to me, rather anxious.

"Why no!" says she; "I haven't touched it."

Whew!... Well, there was a lively hunt in that mail room for the next ten minutes, but it ended in nothin'.

Ike Hamilton's registered letter was gone!