"See here, Henery Holmes," cried Isaac, "it's all right for us old
folks, but there's the children. How can they imagine Pleasantville
station when some of 'em ain't yet seen a train?"

This routed even Henry Holmes. At the store he would never have given
in, but he was not accustomed to hearing so loud a murmur of approval
greet the opposition. He realized that he had been placed in a false
position by the importunities of Mr. Thomas, and to him he now left the
brunt of the trouble by stepping out of the illumined circle and losing
himself in the company.

The fire-swept zone had no terrors for Perry. With one hand thrust
between the first and second buttons of his coat, and the other raised
in that gesture with which the orator stills the sea of discontent, he
stepped forward, and turning slowly about, brought his eyes to bear on
the contumacious Bolum. He indicated the target. Every optic gun in
the room was levelled at it. The upraised hand, the potent silence,
the solemn gaze of a hundred eyes was too much for the old man to bear.
Slowly he swung back on two legs of his chair, caught the rungs again
with the projecting soles, turned his eyes to the ceiling, closed them,
and set himself to imagining the station at Pleasantville. The rout
was complete.

Perry wheeled and faced me. The hand was lowered slowly; four fingers
disappeared and one long one, one quivering one, remained, a whip with
which to chastise the prisoner at the bar.

"Mark Hope," he began, in a deep, rich, resonant voice, "we welcome you
home. We have come down from the valley, fourteen mile through the
blazin' noonday sun, fourteen mile over wind-swept roads, that you,