Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/94

 On Monday no single individual visited the shed. On Tuesday Captain MacNab looked in to inquire when the rest of his cargo would be landed.

"Of course," he said, "it's nothing to me when you land them. I'd just as soon spend the spring here as anywhere else; but I'd be getting them ashore if I were you. I've a sort of suspicion that some of them are beginning to go bad."

Early in the following week, Mr. Normanstill drove up to the shed.

"I looked in as I passed," he said, cheerfully, "to see if you were worn out selling those potatoes. It must be hard work. I shouldn't wonder, now, if you'd be the better of a holiday."

"I'm not worn out with selling potatoes," said Mr. Nicholson-Croly, bitterly. "I haven't sold a single stone, and so far as I can see, I'm not likely to. I can't understand it."

"Do you tell me that?" said "Mr. Normanstill. "It's most extraordinary. Did you ask Father Gibbons why you couldn't sell them?"

"He can't understand it any more than I can."

"Oh, he can't understand it!" Mr. Normanstill grinned. "Do you know, it occurs to me that maybe the people are holding off in expectation of the second cargo."

"What second cargo?"

"Do you mean to tell me you don't know? Well, you must be the only man in the whole country who doesn't. Why, man, the gentlemen who came down