The latter's thoughts were not in the
light keeper's parlor. Cousin Gussie leaned over and whispered in his
ear:
"Loosh," whispered Mr. Cabot, chokingly, "if the rest of this stunt
is as good as the beginning I'll forgive you for handing that fourteen
thousand to the mummy-hunters. I wouldn't have missed it for more than
that."
Captain Jethro, beating the table, drove his guests to order as of old
he had driven his crews. Having obtained silence and expressed, in a few
stinging words, his opinion of those who laughed, he proceeded with his
arrangements.
"Tamson," he commanded, addressing Miss Black, "go and set there by
the organ. Come, Marietta, you know where your place is, don't you? Set
right where you did last time. And don't let's have any more mockery!"
he thundered, addressing the company in general. "If I thought for a
minute there was any mockery or make-believe in these meetin's, I--I--"
He paused, his chest heaving, and then added, impatiently, but in a
milder tone, "Well, go on, go on! What are we waitin' for? Douse those
lights, somebody."
Miss Hoag--who had been glancing at the light keeper's face and behaving
in the same oddly nervous, almost apprehensive manner which Martha had
noticed when she entered the parlor--took her seat in the official
chair and closed her eyes. Mr. Beebe turned down the lamps. The ancient
melodeon, recently prescribed for and operated upon by the repairer from
Hyannis, but still rheumatic and asthmatic, burst forth in an unhealthy
rendition of a Moody and Sankey hymn.
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