Nevertheless it was Betty Gallup who helped the dazed youth to his feet and assisted him into the house and made him lie down upon Cap'n Abe's lounge in the living room. She brought warm water and laved his bruised face. And she brought vinegar and brown paper and put a patch on his inflamed eye. "Now you lay up here as long as you feel like, Tom Petty," Mrs. Gallup said, as she cleared the table of the dinner dishes. "Mischief's done now, and you can't better it. Folks is bound to know you got licked, for your hull face advertises the fac'." The storm kept many customers from interrupting Cap'n Abe, although the wind was moderating. He sat with Cap'n Jonah in the living room and discussed the latter's financial affairs more earnestly than heretofore. "You say this here money you got in your wallet is all you got in the world, Cap'n Hand?" "Whatever! Nor no more to be had," said Cap'n Jonah. "I got some ile sheers--but, pshaw! They ain't nothin'." "What air them sheers?" demanded Cap'n Abe, suddenly. "Better take stock of ev'rythin', as the feller said when he listed the litter of kittens in the sheriff's sale. I was readin' in the _Globe_ paper only this mornin'----" He got up and brought the Boston paper from the rack on the wall. Unfolding it he found the financial page and pointed a horny forefinger to the heading of an article there printed. "What's this here?" Cap'n Abe asked. "Where's my readin' specs? Never can find 'em when they air wanted." "On your forehead like they always be," said Cap'n Jonah, taking the paper after having adjusted his own eyeglasses. "'Hem! Whatever! What d'you make of this, Mr. Silt? Why, them's the very sheers! The Little Sandy Oil and Coal Company." "Lemme see!" said Cap'n Abe eagerly, having twitched his silver-bowed spectacles astride his nose. "D'you mean to say, Cap'n Hand, that you got some o' them Little Sandy sheers?" "Abe Silt!" ejaculated Cap'n Jonah, almost breathless. "I got two thousand of 'em! Right here in my pocket! D'you s'pose they can be the same?" "'Little Sandy Oil and Coal Company,'" read Cap'n Abe, slowly. "'Lay dormant many years.' 'Outskirts of the thriving city of Decatur.' My soul, Cap'n Hand!" "Why," said the other, "they told me two year ago that all they ever got out o' them wells they drove, was a bad smell." "Hi-mighty!" shouted Cap'n Abe, slapping his knee in high delight. "That's exactly what they did git! Nateral gas! D'you know what that is, Cap'n Hand? Why, it means they air piping that 'nasty smell' you speak of into the city of Decatur, an' sellin' it to light _an'_ heat houses. What d'ye know 'bout that?" "Whatever!" gasped Cap'n Jonah. "How many of them sheers you got?" demanded the excited storekeeper.