Stories like this Case delighted in, but beyond this penchant for the weird and occult, for even childish tales of distant lands, his conversation in general showed no sign of peculiarity or eccentricity. Only once or twice did he startle us. Some visitors to town were among the gathering on his veranda and fell into a discussion of the contrasting qualities of Northerners and Southerners. Inevitably the discussion degenerated into a rather acrimonious and petty citation of all the weak points of each section and a rehash of all the stale sneers at either. The wordy Alabamian who led one side of the altercation descanted on the necessary and inherited vileness of the descendants of the men who burnt the Salem witches. Case had been listening silently. Then he cut in with an emphatic, trenchant directness unusual to him. “Witches,” he announced, “ought to be burnt always and everywhere.” We sat a moment startled and mute. The Alabamian spoke first. “Do you believe in witches, Sir?” he asked. “I do,” Case affirmed. “Ever been bewitched?” the Alabamian queried. He was rather young and dogmatically assertive. “Do you believe in Asiatic cholera?” Case queried in his turn. “Certainly, Sir,” the Alabamian asserted. “Ever had it?” Case inquired meaningly. “No,” the Alabamian admitted. “No, Sir, never.” “Ever had yellow fever?” Case questioned him. “Never, Sir, thank God,” the Alabamian replied fervently. “Yet I’ll bet,” Case hammered at him, “that you would be among the first to join a shot-gun quarantine if an epidemic broke out within a hundred miles of you. You have never had it, but you believe in it with every fiber of your being. “That’s just the way with me. I’ve never been bewitched, but I believe in witchcraft. Belief in witchcraft is like faith in any one of a dozen fashionable religions, not a subject for argument or proof, but a habit of mind. That’s my habit of mind. I won’t discuss it, but I’ve no hesitation about asserting it. “Witchcraft is like leprosy, both spread among nations indifferent to them, both disappear before unflinching severity. The horror of both among our ancestors abolished both in Europe and kept them from gaining a foothold in this country. Both exist and flourish in other corners of the world, along with other things undreamed of in some complacent philosophies. Leprosy can be repressed only by isolation, the only thing that will abolish witchcraft is fire, fire Sir.” That finished that discussion. No one said another word on the subject. But it started a round of debates on Case’s mental condition, which ran on for days, everywhere except at Case’s house, and which brought up all that could be said about personal aloofness, pensioned dogs, exposed revolvers and pig-skin belts. V