"Oh, no, it ain't!" says Hank, cheerful. "It'll be back to Popper
Dillaway and Belle. When I tell 'em I'm your little cousin Henry and how
you and me worked the territories together--why--well, I guess there'll
be gladness round the dear home nest; hey?"

Peter didn't say nothing. Then he fetched a long breath and motioned
with his head to Cap'n Jonadab and me. We see we weren't invited to the
family reunion, so we went out and shut the door. But we did pity Peter;
I snum if we didn't!

It was most an hour afore Brown come out of that room. When he did he
took Jonadab and me by the arm and led us out back of the barn.

"Fellers," he says, sad and mournful, "that--that plaster cast in a
crazy-quilt," he says, referring to Montague, "is a cousin of mine.
That's the living truth," says he, "and the only excuse I can make is
that 'tain't my fault. He's my cousin, all right, and his name's Hank
Schmults, but the sooner you box that fact up in your forgetory, the
smoother 'twill be for yours drearily, Peter T. Brown. He's to be Mr.
Booth Montague, the celebrated English poet, so long's he hangs out at
the Old Home; and he's to hang out here until--well, until I can dope
out a way to get rid of him."

We didn't say nothing for a minute--just thought. Then Jonadab says,
kind of puzzled: "What makes you call him a poet?" he says.

Peter answered pretty snappy: "'Cause there's only two or three jobs
that a long-haired image like him could hold down," he says. "I'd call
him a musician if he could play 'Bedelia' on a jews'-harp; but he