Cap'n Sproul waked suddenly from the reverie in which he had been talking as much to himself as to Hiram. "Say, look here, you can understand this, can't you, that I've been done out of good property--buncoed by a jeeroosly old hunk of hornbeam?" "Oh, I got bulletins on that, all right," assented Hiram. "Well, from what you know of me, do you think I'm the kind of a man that's goin' to squat like a hen in a dust-heap and not do him? Law? To Tophet with your law! Pneumony, lightnin', and lawyers--they're the same thing spelled different. I'm just goin' to do him, that's all, and instink is whisperin' how." He turned his back on the showman and ran calculating eye over Mr. Bodge. "I don't hardly see how that old hair mattress there is goin' to be rung in on the deal," growled Hiram. "Nor I," agreed the Cap'n, frankly; "not so fur as the details appear to me just now. But there's something about him that gives me hopes." He pulled out his wallet, licked his thumb, and peeled off a bill. "Bodge, so fur's I can see now, you seem to be a good investment. I don't know just yet how much it is goin' to take to capitalize you, but here's ten dollars for an option. You understand now that I'm president of you, and my friend here is sekertary. And you're to keep your mouth shut." Mr. Bodge agreed with effusive gratitude, and capital went its way. The inventor chased after them with thumping peg-leg to inquire whether he should first perfect the model of the "cat identifier," or develop his idea of an automatic chore-doer, started by the rooster tripping a trigger as he descended to take his matutinal sniff of air. "You just keep in practise with that thing," commanded the Cap'n, pointing to the cow's horn. "I don't see even yet how you are goin' to do it," remarked Hiram, as they separated a half-hour later at Cap'n Sproul's gate. "Nor I," said the Cap'n; "but a lot of meditation and a little prayer will do wonders in this world, especially when you're mad enough." XX The night seemed to afford counsel, for the next day Cap'n Sproul walked into the dooryard of Colonel Gideon Ward with features composed to an almost startling expression of amiability. The Colonel, haunted by memories and stung by a guilty conscience, appeared at the door, and his mien indicated that he was prepared for instant and desperate combat. At the end of a half-hour's discourse, wholly by the Cap'n, his face had lost a measure of its belligerency, but sullen fear had taken its place. For Cap'n Sproul's theme had been the need of peace and mutual confidence in families, forbearance and forgetfulness of injuries that had been mutual. The Cap'n explained that almost always property troubles were the root of family evils, and that as soon as property disputes were eliminated in his case, he at once had come to a realizing sense of his own mistakes and unfair attitude, and had come to make frank and manly confession, and to shake hands. Would the Colonel shake hands?