' Judicial sur-
prise being an emotion that attorneys are not com-
monly ambitious to arouse, the motion was hastily
withdrawn and an agreement with the other side
effected as to what Mr. Deemer would have said
if he had been there--the other side pushing its
advantage to the extreme and making the supposi-
titious testimony distinctly damaging to the interests
of its proponents. In brief, it was the general feeling
in all that region that Silas Deemer was the one
immobile verity of Hillbrook, and that his transla-
tion in space would precipitate some dismal public
ill or strenuous calamity.
Mrs. Deemer and two grown daughters occupied
the upper rooms of the building, but Silas had never
been known to sleep elsewhere than on a cot behind
the counter of the store. And there, quite by acci-
dent, he was found one night, dying, and passed
away just before the time for taking down the shut-
ters. Though speechless, he appeared conscious, and
it was thought by those who knew him best that if the
end had unfortunately been delayed beyond the
usual hour for opening the store the effect upon him
would have been deplorable.
Such had been Silas Deemer--such the fixity and
invariety of his life and habit, that the village humor-
ist (who had once attended college) was moved to
bestow upon him the sobriquet of 'Old Ibidem,'
and, in the first issue of the local newspaper after
the death, to explain without offence that Silas had
taken 'a day off.
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