The two elderly men sitting together on the right-hand side of the car
droned on in their apparently endless Jeremiad concerning the low price
of cranberries, the scarcity of scallops on the flats, the reasons why
the fish weirs were a failure nowadays, and similar cheerful topics. And
in his seat on the left, Mr. Atwood Graves, junior partner in the New
York firm of Sylvester, Kuhn and Graves, lawyers, stirred uneasily on
the lumpy plush cushion, looked at his watch, then at the time-table in
his hand, noted that the train was now seventy-two minutes late, and
for at least the fifteenth time mentally cursed the railway company, the
whole of Cape Cod from Sandwich to Provincetown, and the fates which had
brought him there.

The train slowed down, in a jerky, hiccoughy sort of way, and crept
on till the car in which Mr. Graves was seated was abreast the lighted
windows of a small station, where it stopped. Peering through the
water-streaked pane at the end of his seat, the lawyer saw dim
silhouettes of uncertain outline moving about. They moved with provoking
slowness. He felt that it would be joy unspeakable to rush out there and
thump them into animation. The fact that the stately Atwood Graves even
thought of such an undignified proceeding is sufficient indication of
his frame of mind.

Then, behind the door which the brakeman, after announcing the station,
had closed again, sounded a big laugh. The heartiness of it grated on
Mr. Graves's nerves. What idiot could laugh on such a night as this
aboard a train over an hour late?

The laugh was repeated. Then the door was flung briskly open, and a
man entered the car. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, inclined to
stoutness, wearing a cloth cap with a visor, and a heavy ulster, the