"'Good land!' says I. 'I wanted Eighty-second.'

"'Why didn't you say so?' says he, lookin' as if I'd stole his mother's
spoons.

"'I did,' says I.

"'You DID?' he snarls. 'You did not! If you did, wouldn't I have heard
you?'

"Well, any answer I'd be likely to make to that would have meant more
argument, and the bus was sailin' right along at the time, so I piled
out and did some more walkin', the other way. At last I reached your old
number, Stevie, and--Hey? Did you speak?"

"Don't call me 'Stevie,'" growled his nephew, rebelliously.

"Beg your pardon. I keep forgettin' that you're almost grown up. Well,
as I was sayin', I got to the house where you used to live, and 'twas
shut tight. Nobody there. Ho! ho! I felt a good deal like old Beriah
Doane must have on his last 'vacation.' You see, Beriah is one of our
South Denboro notorieties; he's famous in his way. He works and loafs
by spells until cranberry pickin' time in the fall; then he picks steady
and earns thirty or forty dollars all at once. Soon's he's paid off, he
starts for Boston on a 'vacation,' an alcoholic one. Well, last fall
his married sister was visitin' him, and she, bein' strong for good
Templarism, was determined he shouldn't vacate in his regular way. So
she telegraphed her husband's brother in Brockton to meet Beriah there,
go with him to Boston, and see that he behaved himself and stayed sober.
Beriah heard of it, and when his train gets as far as Tremont what does