want to know what I think of Tom Buffum?"

"Yes, sir."

"It won't do fur me to tell ye, 'cause I'm rough, but if there's
anything awful bad--oh, bad as anything can be, in Skeezacks--I should
say that Tom Buffum was an old Skeezacks."

Jim Fenton was feeling his way.

"I should say he was an infernal old Skeezacks. That isn't very bad, is
it?"

"I don't know sir," replied the boy.

"Well, a d----d rascal; how's that?"

"My father never used such words," replied the boy.

"That's right, and I take it back. I oughtn't to have said it, but
unless a feller has got some sort o' religion he has a mighty hard time
namin' people in this world. What's that?"

Jim started with the sound in his ear of what seemed to be a cry of
distress.

"That's one of the crazy people. They do it all the time.'"

Then Jim thought of the speeches he had heard in the town-meeting, and
recalled the distress of Miss Butterworth, and the significance of all