The _Signal_ fell flat and smooth upon the pavement; there was the scraping of many feet as the crowd pushed forward, a mere instant of silence as they read: "_The Last Will and Testament of Sarah Hayden Mosely_"; then a furious rush for the post office, where every subscriber to the _Signal_ hastily snatched his copy. The Colonel, bereft of Sasnett's support, slid gently to a sitting posture against the lamp post, his legs wide apart, his red slippers half off. Tears filled his eyes. He wagged his head and sobbed: "Selah! Selah! Sharper than a sherpent's tooth----" He could not recall the rest, he merely felt it. He was a poor old man, alone, forsaken, he knew that. No one noticed him. One after another the men filed out, each with the _Signal_ wide open, and with his eyes fastened upon a certain column. They scattered beneath the various awnings, singly or in groups. Not one addressed his neighbour. Each remained concealed behind the wide enveloping sheets which literally tittered in their trembling hands. CHAPTER II Silence is the luxury of wise men and the necessity of fools--which indicates how few men are wise. It is usually the man who does not know what to say, or who has nothing worth saying to impart, that does the talking. It is a form of verbal hysteria, a kind of babbling dust which he stirs by way of concealing his incapacities. And the discourse is more characteristic of women than of the opposite sex, because the lives they live tend to the innocuous, if they do not tend to neuralgia and despair. Silence in a woman is always supernatural. But there are emergencies in life so dumbfounding and sinister in their aspect that they bind the tongue and inform even the foolish with the momentary wisdom of silence and prudence. Magnis Carter as editor of the _Signal_ was naturally loquacious, especially in print. He published the news with all the fluency which liquefied language permits. It was only in this manner that he was able to fill the few inside columns of the _Signal_. The outside pages were "patented," of course, and contained matter taken from other papers and magazines. News was so scarce in Jordantown that if a stray dog trotted across the square, it was almost a sensation. Not to know whose dog a dog was afforded an opportunity for speculation and for a change in the topic of conversation. The singular brevity therefore with which Carter published the most important information ever needed and yearned for in Jordantown, was significant. Even the weekly local column was exceedingly reserved, as if some prescience of the future had rendered every man and woman cautious of performing a single act worthy of interest. Nothing was said of the last meeting of the Ladies' Civic League and Cemetery Association. There was no flamboyant boasting concerning the various enterprises. But at the top of the first column on the editorial page, between two wide black lines, appeared this notice: