This was a trifle too much. I refused to be charitable to Victor. I heard from him, or of him, next day. I met Captain Jed Dean at the bank, where I had called to see Taylor and inquire concerning how he and Nellie got home from the festival. They had had a damp, though safe, journey, I learned, and the Methodist ladies had cleared seventy-four dollars and eighty-five cents from the entertainment. Captain Jed entered the door as I left the cashier's gate. “Ship ahoy, Ros!” hailed the captain, genially. “Make port safe and sound after the flood? I'd have swapped my horse and buggy for Noah's Ark that night and wouldn't have asked any boot neither. Did you see Mullet's bridge? Elnathan says he cal'lates he's got willow kindlin' enough to last him all summer. Ready split too--the lightnin' attended to that. Lute Rogers don't talk about nothin' else. I cal'late he wishes lightnin' would strike your woodpile; then he'd be saved consider'ble labor, hey?” He laughed and I laughed with him. “I understood Princess Colton was out in the wust of it,” went on Captain Jed. “Did you hear how her horse ran away?” “Yes,” I answered, shortly; “I heard about it.” “Never stopped till it got half way to West Bayport. The coachman hangin' onto the reins and swearin' at the top of his lungs all the time. 'Bije Ellis, who lives up that way, says the road smells like a match factory even yet--so much brimstone in the air. The girl got home somehow or other, they tell me. I cal'late her fine duds got their never-get-over. Nellie says the hat she was wearin' come from Paris, or some such foreign place. Well, the rain falls on the just and unjust, so scriptur tells us, and it's true enough. Only the unjust in this case can afford new hats better'n the just, a consider'ble sight. Denboro's lost a promisin' new citizen; did you know it?” “Whom do you mean?” “Hadn't you heard? That young Carver feller shook the dust--the mud, I mean--of our roads off his shoes this mornin'. He went away on the up train.” Here was news. “The up train?” I repeated. “You mean he has gone for good?” “I should call it for good, for our good, anyhow. Yes, he's gone. Went to the depot in Colton's automobile. His majesty went with him fur's the platform. The gang that saw the proceedin's said the good-bys wan't affectin'. Colton didn't shed any tears and young Carver seemed to be pretty down at the mouth.” “But what makes you think he has gone for good?” I asked. “Why, Alvin Baker was there, same as he usually is, and he managed to be nigh enough to hear the last words--if there had been any.” “And there were not?”