The door of the store stood
open; the place was vacant, but on the walls, the
floor, the furniture, were shreds of clothing and tan-
gles of hair. Hillbrook militant had managed some-
how to pull itself out and had gone home to medi-
cine 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 handwrit-
ing, 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 pas-
sions having subsided and reason having resumed
its immemorial sway, it was confessed in Hillbrook
that, considering the harmless and honourable char-
acter 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the local historian from whose unpublished work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. Maybe you
can recommend a specialist in psychopathy. I fancy
I'm a bit loony.'
'You look all right,' the physician said.
'You shall judge--I have hallucinations. I wake
every night and see in my room, intently watching
me, a big black Newfoundland dog with a white
forefoot.
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