"Didn't I tell you my name? Sho, sho! That's funny. My name's
Keeler--Laban B. Keeler. That's my name and bookkeeper is my station.
South Harniss is my dwellin' place--and I guess likely you'll have to
see the minister about the rest of it. He, he, he!"

His passenger, to whom the old schoolbook quatrain was entirely unknown,
wondered what on earth the man was talking about. However, he smiled
politely and sniffed with a dawning suspicion. It seemed to him there
was an unusual scent in the air, a spirituous scent, a--

"Have a peppermint lozenger," suggested Mr. Keeler, with sudden
enthusiasm. "Peppermint is good for what ails you, so they tell me.
Ye-es, yes, yes. Have one. Have two, have a lot."

He proceeded to have a lot himself, and the buggy was straightway
reflavored, so to speak. The boy, his suspicions by no means dispelled,
leaned back in the corner behind the curtains and awaited developments.
He was warmer, that was a real physical and consequently a slight mental
comfort, but the feeling of lonesomeness was still acute. So far his
acquaintanceship with the citizens of South Harniss had not filled him
with enthusiasm. They were what he, in his former and very recent state
of existence, would have called "Rubes." Were the grandparents whom he
had never met this sort of people? It seemed probable. What sort of
a place was this to which Fate had consigned him? The sense of utter
helplessness which had had him in its clutches since the day when he
received the news of his father's death was as dreadfully real as ever.
He had not been consulted at all. No one had asked him what he wished to
do, or where he wished to go. The letter had come from these people, the
Cape Cod grandparents of whom, up to that time, he had never even