vacant, but on the walls, the floor, the furniture, were shreds of
clothing and tangles of hair. Hillbrook militant had managed somehow
to pull itself out and had gone home to medicine its hurts and swear
that it had been all night in bed. On the dusty desk, behind the
counter, was the sales-book. The entries in it, in Deemer's
handwriting, had ceased on the 16th day of July, the last of his
life. There was no record of a later sale to Alvan Creede.

That is the entire story--except that men's passions having subsided
and reason having resumed its immemorial sway, it was confessed in
Hillbrook that, considering the harmless and honorable character of
his first commercial transaction under the new conditions, Silas
Deemer, deceased, might properly have been suffered to resume
business at the old stand without mobbing. In that judgment the
local historian from whose unpublished work these facts are compiled
had the thoughtfulness to signify his concurrence.



STALEY FLEMING'S HALLUCINATION



Of two men who were talking one was a physician.

"I sent for you, Doctor," said the other, "but I don't think you can
do me any good. May be you can recommend a specialist in
psychopathy. I fancy I'm a bit loony."

"You look all right," the physician said.