She sat down on the bed to regard them and to ask them questions, but found them singularly uncommunicative. Beyond the meagerest replies she could have nothing of them. The bottle seemed sullen, dour, as became a bottle of Scotch whisky. In the most ungracious manner it told Carmel its name and the name of its distillers and its age.... The match box refused to make any answers whatever, being, she judged, of New England descent, and therefore more closed mouth than even the Scotch. The bottle squatted and glowered dully. It wore an air of apprehension, and patently was on its guard. The brass match box, brought to a fine polish by long travel in an active trousers pocket, was more jaunty about it, having a dry, New England humor of its own, recognizable as such. The identifying quality of New England humor is that you are always a little in doubt as to whether it is intended to be humor. The conversation was one-sided and not illuminating. “Who brought you over the line?” Carmel asked. The bottle hunched its shoulders and said nothing, but the match box answered in the dialect of the country, “I fetched him--for comp’ny. A feller gits dry sleepin’ out in the woods.” “Who made you, anyhow?” Carmel asked of the match box. “Feller that likes to keep his matches dry.” “Somebody who likes to hunt,” said Carmel. “Wa-al, him ’n me knows our way about in the woods.” “Who was coming to get you from where you were hidden?” Carmel asked the bottle, suddenly. “D’ye ken,” said the bottle, sourly, “I’m thinkin’ ye are an inqu_ee_sitive body. Will ye no gang aboot your business, lassie. Hae doon wi’ ye; ye’ll hae no information frae me.” “Who were those two men in the car?” said Carmel. “Strangers to me,” said the match box, nonchalantly. “One of them dropped you,” said Carmel. “Mebby he did; dunno _if_ he did,” said the match box. “Somebody’ll know who owns you,” said Carmel. “How’ll you go about finding that out?” said the match box. “Findin’ _caches_ of licker in the woods hain’t good fer the health, seems as though. Traipsin’ around town askin’ who owns me might fetch on a run of sickness.” “You can’t frighten me,” said Carmel. “Sheriff Churchill wa’n’t the frightenin’ kind, neither,” said the match box, significantly. “What if I put a piece in my paper telling just how I found you?” said Carmel. “Be mighty helpful to our side,” said the match box. “Stir up ill feelin’ without gittin’ you any place.” “What shall I do, then?” Carmel asked. “Can’t expect _me_ to be givin’ you advice,” said the match box. And there the conversation lapsed. The bottle continued to glower and the match box to glitter with a dry sort of light, while Carmel regarded them silently, her exasperation mounting. She was in the unenviable position of a person to whom belongs the next move, when there seems no place to move to.