Meanwhile, the whole population of Parker's Falls, consisting of
shopkeepers, mistresses of boarding-houses, factory-girls, mill-men
and schoolboys, rushed into the street and kept up such a terrible
loquacity as more than compensated for the silence of the
cotton-machines, which refrained from their usual din out of respect
to the deceased. Had Mr. Higginbotham cared about posthumous renown,
his untimely ghost would have exulted in this tumult.

Our friend Dominicus in his vanity of heart forgot his intended
precautions, and, mounting on the town-pump, announced himself as the
bearer of the authentic intelligence which had caused so wonderful a
sensation. He immediately became the great man of the moment, and had
just begun a new edition of the narrative with a voice like a
field-preacher when the mail-stage drove into the village street. It
had travelled all night, and must have shifted horses at Kimballton at
three in the morning.

"Now we shall hear all the particulars!" shouted the crowd.

The coach rumbled up to the piazza of the tavern followed by a
thousand people; for if any man had been minding his own business till
then, he now left it at sixes and sevens to hear the news. The pedler,
foremost in the race, discovered two passengers, both of whom had been
startled from a comfortable nap to find themselves in the centre of a
mob. Every man assailing them with separate questions, all propounded
at once, the couple were struck speechless, though one was a lawyer
and the other a young lady.

"Mr. Higginbotham! Mr. Higginbotham! Tell us the particulars about old
Mr. Higginbotham!" bawled the mob. "What is the coroner's verdict? Are